Submissions

Author Guidelines

In order to avoid problems with the incorporation of new formats (automatic numbering, uppercase, etc.), we have shared the layout template here.

The maximum extension of the article will be 25 pages, including bibliographic references. The text should be written with font Verdana, font size 11, simple spacing, avoiding any type of marks or page break that may interfere in the text conversion to other formats. Quotations, tables and table titles in Verdana 10. The four margins of the A4 page must be 2.5 cm, as it can be notices in the template. It is recommended to deactivate WORD automatic formats for lists with bullets, automatic uppercase, chapter numbering, etc. The final text will respect all formats included in the template.

Each anonymised contribution shall be accompanied by a separate authorship document containing: 1. the title (first the title of the language of the article, second in English if the article is not written in English or in Spanish if the language of the proposal is English), 2. name and surname of the authors (in the order declared in the originality document), 3. place of work, 4. e-mail (better if institutional), as shown in the template. A brief curriculum vitae (max. 100 words) should be attached and can be placed before the abstract or directly uploaded among the author's metadata in the platform. It is recommended that the maximum number of authors of the publication is 2.

Only those who have participated significantly in the conception, development, writing or review of the article will be considered authors. The order of authorship must be agreed by all authors before submission. Honorary authorship or omission of relevant contributors is not accepted. It is recommended that individual contributions be declared according to the CRediT taxonomy. 

Moreover, the article should include an abstract (maximum 150 words) and keywords (maximum 5) both in Spanish and English. For those articles submitted as proposals, it is recommended to follow a basic scientific research layout: introduction (contextualization and main goals), source description, materials and methods used, presentations of results and discussion; conclusions and bibliographic references. The separation between paragraphs should be indicated with a 1 cm indentation. This indentation is not necessary when the text follows a title or subtitle. This very same type of margin is used to introduce long quotations which, in turn, are separated by single spacing from the text body.

For quotations within the text body, the system to be used is that of author-year (Jackobson, 1963: 124-127). If an author with several works published in the same year is cited, lowercase can be used: (Jackobson, 1963a), (Jackobson, 1963b) and so on.

Figures and tables should be inserted in the proper place of the document where they should be printed, centred and within the established margins. They should be numbered with a brief header. Tables and figures should be numbered with Arabic numerals.

Schemes, pictures, graphs, equations or photographs must be inserted in the text as images (max 1 mega per image and no more than 5 in total). Initially, tables should not be converted to images except in case they are so complex they could disturb edition or the author wants to guarantee their accuracy in a web format. All images and tables should have a white background and follow the template pattern. It should be avoided, even in the image format, the use of ornamental colours or intense inks. Images should be sent in a separated, zipped folder (consisting on the article formatted according to the template plus images) which will be requested when editing the material.

Notes will be placed at the end of the text properly numbered. The use of automatic editors will not be allowed. Notes will be manually placed (their number as exponent within the text body and the notes after the text body according to the NOTES format.) There are examples in the template.

In the BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES section, only the articles used in the text body will be cited according to APA referencing style. Any link will be activated so that they do appear in blue and underlined. 

Anonymisation of the proposal

Although the editor will remove names, affiliations and CV under the title within the manuscript, there are other steps that must be taken to ensure that the manuscript is properly prepared for double-blind peer review. To assist in this process, key points to observe are as follows:

- Remove any identifying information from file names and ensure that the document properties are also anonymised.

- The third person should be used to refer to work that the authors have previously done, e.g. replace any phrases such as "as we have discussed before" with "... previously discussed [Author, 2020]".

- Limit self-references only to work that is relevant to those reviewing the submitted work.

- Cite work published by you or the other authors of the submission as follows: '[Author 2020]'. Similarly in the final reference list omit title and other information.

- Remove references to funding sources and do not include acknowledgements.

Inclusive Language

RNLAEL advocates the use of inclusive language in the writing of articles, therefore we ask you to respect the guidelines that each language has given to respect it: in the case of Spanish or English the United Nations"s Guidelines. In the case of submission of your paper in other languages, please ask for the reference document.

Declaration of authorship and originality 

To submit a manuscript it is necessary to upload to the platform, as a complementary file, a letter of intent and originality clearly indicating:

1. Full name(s) of the author(s), institutional affiliations and addresses for correspondence (it is essential to provide an e-mail address for direct communication).
2. Title of the proposal

Ensure that the document's properties are also anonymous.

1. 1. The submission has not been previously published nor is it being considered for publication by any other journal.
   2. In the case of an article with more than one author, the contribution of each author must be stated in the writing of the article. The order of appearance of the authors will correspond to the effort made. In the case of equal contributions, authors will be listed in alphabetical order.
   3. List of at least five suggested reviewers (with their email address) who can evaluate the manuscript and who meet the following requirements: 1. Academic title of doctorate, 2. Expert in the subject of the article, 3. Articles published in indexed journals during the last 2 years, 4. Institutional affiliation outside the publishing entity of the journal.
   4. Mandatory declaration of the use of artificial intelligence tools. Suggested example: ‘During the preparation of this manuscript, generative artificial intelligence tools (specifically ChatGPT, OpenAI) were used for the sole purpose of improving writing and linguistic correctness. The suggestions provided were critically reviewed by the authors, who assume full responsibility for the content of the article.’ (see Artificial Intelligence Use Policy).

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

The Revista Nacional de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas (RNLAEL) recognises the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools in academia. In order to guarantee transparency and scientific integrity, the following rules regarding the use of such tools are established:

1. Mandatory declaration:
2. Authors must explicitly declare if they have used AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, DeepL, among others) at any stage of the manuscript preparation process.
3. Limitations of use:
• The use of AI should be limited to mechanical tasks such as grammar checking, style suggestions, translation, or generating preliminary summaries.
• It is not permitted to use AI to generate original data, to write substantive sections of the article (such as introduction, discussion or results) or to interpret findings.
4. Responsibility and authorship:
• AI tools do not meet the criteria for authorship and should not be cited as such.
• Authors are responsible for critically reviewing any AI-generated content and will assume full responsibility for the final content of the manuscript.

Supplementary files

Authors have the option of attaching supplementary files or additional material that will enhance the understanding or documentation of the submitted article. These files do not form part of the main body of the text, but are considered valuable for transparency, reproducibility and access to relevant additional information.

The following types of files, among others, are accepted:

• Data sets used in the study (formats: .csv, .xlsx, etc.).
• Research instruments (questionnaires, interview guides, rubrics, etc.).
• Audiovisual material (audios, videos, examples of analysis, etc.).
• Scripts or codes used in data analysis (Python, R, etc.).
• Expanded tables or figures that have not been included in the body of the article.
• Ethics or validation documents, such as approvals by ethics committees.

Requirements:

• Each file must have a descriptive title (for example: ‘Appendix A - Questionnaire applied’).
• The content must be directly related to the article.
• It must be guaranteed that the files do not contain personal data or sensitive information that compromises the privacy of participants, unless explicit consent has been given.

Accessibility:

Supplementary files may be made available to readers as downloadable materials from the article page, if the editorial team considers it relevant.