Author Guidelines

Table of Contents

1. Author Guidelines
2. Manuscript Anonymization
3. Inclusive Language
4. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools
5. Supplementary Materials
6. Copyright Notice and Licensing
7. Privacy Statement

1. Author Guidelines

Authors are required to download and use the official templates to prepare their documents:

• Download Title Page Template (File A)
• Download Anonymized Manuscript Template (File B)

1.1. Submission Structure: File A and File

Each submission must consist of two separate documents:

• File A (non-blind): Gathers authorship metadata, institutional affiliations, biodata, and ethical-legal commitments.
• File B (anonymized): Contains the complete text of the article to be forwarded to peer reviewers.

1.2. File A: Title Page, Metadata, and Declarations

This file must include:

• Identification: Article title, authors' full names, institutional affiliation (without academic titles or administrative positions), institutional email address, ORCID link, and a brief academic-professional biodata (100–150 words per author).
• Mandatory Declarations:
• Authorship contribution according to the CRediT taxonomy.
• Statement on conflicts of interest.
• Funding and/or Acknowledgments (specifying project code and funding body, or the explicit note: "No funding").
• Ethical approval and informed consent (for studies involving human participants/sensitive data, or explicit justification for exemption).
• Data availability statement (link to an open-access repository or access conditions).
• Declaration on the use of Artificial Intelligence.
• Acceptance of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license and assignment of first publication rights.
• Commitment to inclusive language.
• Suggested Reviewers: A list of potential external reviewers (minimum of 2) holding a PhD degree, with their contact details and a statement of absence of conflicts of interest.

For the exact wording and standard models of each declaration, please refer to the Title Page Template (File A).

1.3. File B: Anonymized Manuscript

The body of the work must follow these general formatting guidelines:

• Typography and Layout: Noto Serif font, single line spacing, and justified alignment. Total length between 7,000 and 8,000 words.
• Initial Structure: Bilingual title (Spanish and English), abstracts of up to 150 words, and up to 5 keywords in both languages.
• Main Text: Coherent scientific structure (e.g., IMRaD). Section headings with hierarchical manual numbering (1., 1.1., etc.) and bullet points formatted with en-dashes (–). In empirical or corpus-based studies, the sample size or number of participants (n=) must always be explicitly reported.
• Tables and Figures: Must be inserted in an editable format directly into the text, on a white background, matching the journal’s color palette (blue tones / Accent 4). Images and figures must also be submitted in a separate compressed file (.zip or .rar) with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
• Final Sections: Endnotes must be placed at the end of the text (not as footnotes; maximum of 10), followed by the reference list and appendices (if applicable).

For specific styles regarding headings, indentations, table/graph designs, and linguistic example layouts, please consult the Manuscript Template (File B).

1.4. Citations and References (APA 7th ed.)

• In-Text Citations: Author-date format (e.g., Surname, 2023). Direct quotations under 40 words enclosed in quotation marks; quotations of 40 words or more indented in a separate block paragraph (10 pt).
• Reference List: Adapted APA Nebrija style: alphabetical order, hanging indent (1 cm), and surnames followed by the author’s full first name. It is mandatory to include all DOI links active and hyperlinked.

Detailed citation examples for articles, books, corpora, and datasets are provided in the Manuscript Template (File B).

2. Manuscript Anonymization

To ensure double-blind peer review, please verify the following before submitting File B:

• Remove any personal information from the digital file properties (Word or PDF metadata).
• Cite own previous works in the third person or using the anonymized placeholder [AUTHOR, Year] (both in the body of the text and in the final reference list).
• Omit acknowledgments, funding project references, and institutional affiliations from this file.

3. Inclusive Language

RNLAEL advocates for the use of inclusive language in the drafting of articles; therefore, authors are requested to comply with the guidelines established for each language: in the case of Spanish and English, the respective United Nations Guidelines. If submitting work in other languages, please request the relevant reference document.

4. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

The Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas (RNLAEL) acknowledges the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in academic contexts. In order to safeguard scientific transparency and integrity, the following rules regarding their use are established:

• Mandatory Declaration:

Authors must explicitly declare whether they have used AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, DeepL, among others) at any stage of the manuscript preparation process.

• Usage Restrictions:

The use of AI must be restricted to mechanical tasks such as grammatical review, stylistic suggestions, translation, or generating preliminary summaries. The use of AI is strictly prohibited for producing original research data, drafting substantive sections of the article (such as introduction, discussion, or results), or interpreting findings.

• Responsibility and Authorship:

AI tools do not meet the criteria for authorship and must not be listed or cited as co-authors. Authors are responsible for critically evaluating any AI-generated output and assume full responsibility for the final content of the manuscript.

5. Supplementary Materials

Authors may upload datasets, research instruments (questionnaires, rubrics), audio/video files, or computational analysis scripts (R, Python) as supplementary files. These must be labeled with descriptive titles and must not contain personal information that could compromise participant confidentiality.

6. Copyright Notice and Licensing

• Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication.
• Articles are published under the open-access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

7. Privacy Statement

The names, email addresses, and contact details provided will be used exclusively for the editorial purposes of the journal, the management of the peer-review process, and the subsequent publication of the article. They will not be shared with third parties for commercial purposes or any activities unrelated to the academic mission of RNLAEL.