Peer review

Double blind peer review system.

Two (double) or more external peer reviewers will be assigned to evaluate the article confidentially and anonymously (blind).
They will use for their report the form for reviewers. In view of the external reports, the acceptance/rejection of the articles for publication will be decided, as well as the introduction, if necessary, of the appropriate modifications, in terms of length, structure or style, respecting the content of the original.
Duration of the manuscript review process: the average time taken by the reviewers of the Revista Latina de Comunicación Social is a maximum of 45 days. The editor will send the author the summary of the review report received anonymously, as well as the recommendations (if any) for modification of the article, or failing that, the decision to reject the manuscript together with the review reports.
The author will have 7 days to submit to the editor the corrected manuscript together with a justification of those discrepancies that lead to the non-modification of one or more of the aspects pointed out by the reviewers, if any.
The evaluation period, having passed the previous procedures determined by the Editorial Board, is a maximum of 90 days.
In case of:
1. a) there is contradiction between the judgments issued by the reviewers (e.g., one reviewer is of the opinion that the article should be rejected and a second reviewer issues a favorable judgment for publication with minor changes) or.
b) the editor is not completely convinced of the justification accompanying the judgment made by one reviewer, the article will be sent to a third reviewer.
The journal has a database for internal use that processes and records the transfer of articles and the set of reviewers.
Once the manuscript has been definitively accepted, the editor will communicate the editorial decision to the authors, providing them with instructions on how to pay for the translation and layout of the manuscript, a requirement for publication.
The articles will be available on the journal's website with their DOI on the date indicated for the publication of each issue.

Criteria for selection of reviewers. Three reviewers are selected according to their area of specialization (which guarantees a value judgment based on expert knowledge of the subject matter). On the other hand, the reviewers are external to the author's institution, as well as to the committees and editorial bodies of the journal. The list of reviewers for the period of one year is published after this.

Article evaluation and review guidelines.
The review process developed by RLCS follows its code of ethics. For authors to apply to RLCS implies full acceptance of this code of ethics and compliance with these guidelines for evaluation and review.
The first step in the review and evaluation of articles is carried out by the Editorial Committee, which performs an initial anonymous review to verify that the article complies with the characteristics, quality requirements and thematic lines of the journal.
Articles that pass this first review go on to the second review, carried out by Academy doctors, which consists of submitting the text to three anonymous evaluations: one internal (member of the Editorial Committee, academic doctor) and two external (by evaluators outside the Editorial Committee). In case of discrepancy between reviewers, a new one will be assigned to decide. The recommendations of these reviewers must be followed by the authors or scientifically justify their non-inclusion in the revised text; failure to follow the recommendations must be accepted by the reviewers concerned and by the designated member of the Editorial Committee, otherwise, their observance is mandatory and non-observance will result in non-publication.
Before making the final selection of texts for publication by the Editorial Committee, if certain circumstances arise, such as, for example, incurring an ethical conflict or there being an excess of approved papers (positively evaluated) for the same issue, the Editorial Committee will review the score achieved in the previous evaluations and will decide the final composition of the issue of RLCS to be published following this evaluation criterion, deciding in case of a tie. Its decision is final.

The external evaluations always respond to the process called double (at least two) blind (anonymous) peer review, carried out by accredited specialists in the subject matter, guaranteeing anonymity in the review.
In accordance with the RLCS code of ethics, the evaluators will review the work with criteria of independence, objectivity, responsibility and absence of conflict of interest, scrupulously and exclusively following academic values according to their fair judgment, observing that the texts comply with the formal and ethical requirements demanded by the RLCS.
To ensure equality between evaluations, when reviewing the articles, the evaluators will use a common template where the technical and scientific criteria of arbitration will be collected, as well as the comments and suggestions for improvement, which should be followed by the authors in order to improve the quality of the article.
The reviewers will have three options for overall assessment of the article (in all cases the decision taken must be justified in the comments section and in the specific template):
- Publishable without modifications.
- Publishable after making corrections and suggestions for improvement.
- Not publishable.
To avoid plagiarism conflicts, RLCS filters the texts through an anti-plagiarism program, making the resulting report available to the evaluators, if they request it, and suggesting, in turn, that they themselves can proceed to a revision through free programs such as Grammarly, Google, Ephorus, etc...
The Revista Latina de Comunicación Social adheres to the COPE Ethical Framework.

Editorial decision. The criteria for acceptance or rejection of papers are as follows:
a) thematic scope of the journal;
b) scientific level of the authors (valuation in international indexes, category...).
c) coherence with historical lines of research in the journal; d) originality of the manuscript.
d) originality of the manuscript;
e) external support and public/private funding;
f) co-authorships and degree of internationalization of the proposal and of the team;
g) compliance with the standards of the journal;
h) reliability and scientific validity: proven methodological quality;
i) quality of the results and conclusions and coherence with the objectives set out in the manuscript, advance or impact for the journal; j) clarity of the language used, good quality of the manuscript, and good quality of the conclusions;
j) clarity of the language used, good writing;
k) presentation of an adequate structure and scientifically presented data;
l) allusion to updated references and a low proportion of self-citations to previous works of the authors; and;
m) ethical conduct in accordance with the canons applicable to scientific research.
Once the evaluation process has been completed, the main author will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of the work. The contact author will be informed in case of rejection of the submitted manuscript, attaching the summary of the evaluators' reports anonymously.