Online multidisciplinary journal

1 January 2007

Selection Criteria and Scope of the Journal

Discourse & Society is a Discourse analysis journal. It looks for articles that analyze systematically and explicitly the structures and strategies of written and spoken discourse. The theoretical framework must consider the current and international development of discourse study. 

At the same time, it is an analytical and social criticism journal: It analyzes social problems within the explicit framework of social sciences. For this reason, this is a multidisciplinary journal of humanities and social sciences. Articles that are not limited to one single subject are prioritized. Social problems are complex. This is the reason why using terms and theories of one single subject is not enough for their analysis.

It is an international journal: It publishes articles by authors from many different countries and with an international bibliography.

It is a journal destined for students and scholars in several subjects and specializations. Articles must be easily comprehensible and they must avoid obscure wording. Before the advisory committee’s evaluation, it is recommended that the authors request their expert colleagues in the article’s field a critical reading of their text.

Discurso & Sociedad does not publish solely theoretical articles. But articles must be based on an analysis of the corpus of discourses. The warnings obtained in the review of the article by Potter et al below is a good guideline about what should be avoided in these types of articles.

Evaluation Process

The process of evaluation for projects to be accepted is the following:

- Projects must be sent by email to:

    - For articles in Latin America and North America: Teresa Oteiza  moteizas@uc.cl
    - For articles in Brazil and Portugal: Viviane Resende resende.v.melo@gmail.com
    - For articles in Spain and Europe: María del Carmen Marimón Llorca  marimon@ua.es

- The editor will immediately send a confirmation that they received the email and the project.

- Usually in a few days, the editor decides if the presented work fulfills the Discurso & Sociedad requirements, if the work is rejected with a certain type of argumentation (based on the journal’s guidelines), and  the work is sent to two reviewers letting the author know that the process will take a few weeks. In short, authors who present their work to our journal will know in a few days if their work is not suitable. Therefore, if so it can be presented in another journal. 

- Depending on the reviewer and the time that they have, the review can last between a few days or two months. Normally, it takes one month. 

- After that month, a reminder email will be sent to those reviewers that have not sent their review yet and they will be asked to send it as soon as possible. 

- It could occur that, given a personal situation, the reviewer needs more than a month to conduct the review. If that happens, the authors will be informed. 

- Reviewers decide if an article- once it has been admitted by the Editor and, consequently, fulfills the journal criteria- must be rejected, re-submitted or accepted. If accepted, there is the condition that recommended revisions must be done. Articles that are accepted in the same form as they were sent are exceptional cases.

- The editor will inform the authors about the reviewers’ decision, they will send the authors a copy of the review and, if the project is accepted, the instructions for the next version of the work.

- Re-submitted projects will be evaluated by the same reviewer as if they were a new submission. 

- The final version of the work must be sent to the editor. The editor immediately confirms the reception of the final version and if that version is adequate.

- The final version of the work must be in the exact format of the journal publications. Instructions for that format can be downloaded on this page (Instructions) and will be sent to the authors.

- Accepted papers will enter the journal’s publication queue. 

- Journals’ volumes are prepared in advance before two or four volumes are published, so there is a waiting list.

- Depending on the pace of reviewers and conducted revisions by the authors and the number of papers on the waiting list (and the special issues that are programmed), the total time of waiting between the submission and publication of the articles may take from a month to six months.

- For special issues, there is a different criterion that is decided in cooperation with the special issue’s editor.

Publication ethics and malpractice statement

The journal’s department of Discurso & Sociedad is fully committed to the scientific community to guarantee the ethics and quality of published articles. Our journal has a code of conduct and best practices as a reference that is defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics( COPE )for editors of scientific journals. At the same time, an adequate response to the necessities of the readers and authors is guaranteed. This is through assuring the quality of our publications, protecting and respecting the articles’ contents and their integrity. Especially, Discurso & Sociedad takes any possible measures against malpractice publication. That is, it rejects any form of plagiarism or fraudulent data, it preserves the presented works’ confidentiality, it protects the copyright of published works, it only publishes original works and it provides a civilized and efficient environment to support the publication process. Click here for the English Version of the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Click here for the English Version of Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

References

Potter, Jonathan, Charles Antaki, Dereck Edwards y Michael Billig
(2003) El Análisis del discurso implica analizar: Crítica de seis atajos analíticos. En Athenea Digital: revista de pensamiento e investigación social , 3:, ISSN 1578-8946.