Submissions

Author Guidelines

1. General observations

Theory Now follows the MLA Style (9th edition) unless otherwise specified in this style sheet. We urge authors to carefully prepare their manuscripts to conform to citation standards and the following guidelines:

— Contributions must be submitted ready for publication.

— Texts in English, French and Spanish will be accepted. Articles in German with Spanish translation may also be considered.

— Manuscripts must be the result of original research and must not have been published anywhere previously.

— When the authorship is collective, the authors should specify the criteria used when indicating and ordering the signatures.

— Please use simple line spacing, 12 points Helvetica font, and 3 cm margins on each side of the page.

— Recommended length (including notes and bibliography: 5000-11000 words for articles. 1500-2000 words for reviews.

— Manuscripts should be organized as follows:

         - Title page in English, Spanish, and French.

         - Full names, affiliation, ORCID ID number, and email addresses. Please note that the author’s email address will normally be displayed in the PDF.

         - Details of funding and grant-awarding institutions. It should be indicated in a footnote at the end of the title of the article, by means of an asterisk and not by consecutive numbering. At the time of submitting the article for evaluation, this reference must respect the requirement of anonymity and a formula such as: *This project article belongs to project xxxx, ref. yyyy". The funding agency(ies) and the code(s) of the project(s) under which the research leading to the publication was carried out must be indicated.

         - Abstract (150-200 words) and keywords (between 5 and 8 separated by semicolons) in English, Spanish, and French.

         - Main text, references and appendices.

— To ensure anonymity in the peer review process, manuscripts must meet the requirements specified in the following section.

2. Anonymity for evaluation

The evaluation of articles received in Theory Now is carried out in a rigorously anonymous manner. To ensure this, documents must meet the following standards:

— Do not state authorship anywhere in the manuscript.

— Do not include the authorship or user of the Word document in the "File/Information" menu.

— Do not include self-references in the first person in the text. The author’s previous publications should be presented in the same way as those of third parties. If these references produce an inappropriate stylistic effect, they can be changed once the article has been accepted for publication.

— Do not include the author's previous works in the list of works cited under the reference "Author..." or similar, since it allows identification if these works are searched for in repositories or databases. The authorship of such works should be stated in the same way as that of third parties.

— The possible footnote with reference to a research project or similar (see § 3) should not include the title, reference, ip, etc. of the project. The same applies to acknowledgements. Changes can be made to the version of the article for publication after evaluation and acceptance.

3. Manuscript submission and editorial process

Theory Now maintains a permanent call for articles for evaluation. All editorial submissions will be made through the journal's website. Articles proposed for publication will be sent through the journal's interface in the top menu "Submissions".

To do so, authors must enter the "Submissions" section of the journal’s website and register with a username and password (Register), which will be used to log in to the system. Once logged in, you will have the option to start a "New Submission", for which you will have to complete the four steps of the process: 

1. “Start”: you will need to choose the language of the manuscript and the section to which it is addressed. This is especially important when submitting articles in response to a CFP that is the subject of a particular monograph. You should also confirm that you meet the "submission requirements" and acknowledge the "copyright statement".

2. “Upload submission”: in this step you have the option to "Add file" and choose the document to incorporate it into the application, also indicating whether it is the text of the article or another one containing images or data. Remember that only manuscripts in Word format are accepted.

3. “Enter metadata”: you must enter the title of the article, the subtitle (if any) and the abstract in Spanish, English and French, in the spaces provided. You will also have the option of adding collaborators, if any, and you will have to fill in the “Additional refinements” section: firstly, you must state the discipline(s) related to your contribution, secondly, the keywords (in Spanish, English and French), and thirdly, the “Supporting Agencies” that have financed or collaborated in the research carried out, if any. Finally, in the “References” section, you must list all the bibliographical references cited in your work.

4. “Confirmation”: you must "Finish submission" to complete the process. You will, however, have the option to review all the information provided in the previous steps.

Each paper is reviewed anonymously by two specialists in the subject, who send their report and their opinion (Accept for publication without revision / Accept for publication once the suggestions of the evaluation have been incorporated / Revise and send for re-evaluation / Reject for publication) within two weeks. Authors have another two weeks to make the required changes.

Communication with authors takes place entirely through the OJS platform, and they receive timely information on the review process and subsequent editorial decisions, as well as on the procedures for making corrections and on the final production.

Authors do not assume any cost for the submission or publication of their papers.

4. Style sheet

Theory Now follows the style standards of the MLA system (9th edition), with some exceptions, which are specified in this document:

4.1. Style and structure

— Recommended length (including notes and bibliography: 5000-11000 words for articles. 1500-2000 words for reviews.

— Please use simple line spacing, 12 points Helvetica font, and 3 cm margins on each side of the page.

— The journal uses footnotes, rather than endnotes. Footnotes are intended to provide additional information relevant to understanding the arguments of the text, and not to provide general information or bibliographical references.

— The text may be divided into sections and subsections. In this case, follow the instructions below:

• Second-level headings should be numbered sequentially with Arabic numerals and in bold, using the same typeface, Helvetica 12. They should also be aligned to the left, without indentation.

Ex. 1. The theory of the abject in Cristina Morales' novels

• Third-level titles should be numbered consecutively and in italics, using the same Helvetica 12 typeface. They should also be aligned to the left, without indentation.

Ex. 1.1. Abjection and Grotesque in Lectura fácil

— They are not indented:

• The first line of the first paragraph of the article.
• The first line of the first paragraph after a section heading.
• The first line of the first paragraph after an exempt or separate quotation, or an image or graphic.

4.2. Quotations

— If a work written in a language different from the rest of the article is cited, the following rule must be followed: if there is a translation into the language of the article, that translation must be cited; if there isn't one, the author must propose their own translation, indicating that it is a self-made translation.

— Use double quotation marks (“of this kind”) for quotes up to four lines and single quotation marks ('of this kind') for quotes within quotes or for speech within a quotation.

— For quotations that are more than four lines of prose, use a separate indented paragraph with a 1.5 cm indent from the left margin, single spacing and 11-point font, without quotation marks.

— Commas and periods must be placed after the quotation marks: “example”.

— Interrogation or exclamation marks belonging to a quote should be kept within the quotation marks: “example!”.

— Superscript numbers referring to notes must precede punctuation marks that close the sentence period: for example¹.

— Ellipses within the quoted text should be indicated in brackets [...].

— Use italics for foreign words, titles of books and magazines. Titles of poems, stories, articles and chapters should be enclosed in quotation marks.

— Insert references in the body of the text as follows:

      - If the title of the work referred to has just been mentioned in your text, give only the page number in parentheses (265).

      - If the title is not mentioned and the author appears only once in the bibliography, write the author's name followed by the page number in parentheses (Butler 374).

      - If the author appears in the bibliography more than once, write the author's name in parentheses, add a comma, and include the title of the work and the page number (Ortega, El tema de nuestro tiempo 27).

      - If the title is long, you can write its short reference (Esposito, La Macchina 77).

— Full references should appear at the end of the article within the bibliography.

— References to scientific publications indexed will be positively valued.

4.3. Works cited

All bibliographic references are hanging indented.

The DOI should be included in all documents that have it.

— Books

Last Name, First Name. Book Title. City, Publisher, Publication Date.

Esposito, Roberto. Due: La macchina della teologia politica e il posto del pensiero. Turin, Einaudi, 2013.

— Articles

Author(s). “Article Title”. Journal Title, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Bagchi, Alaknanda. “Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi’s Bashai Tudu”. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

— Book chapters

Last name, First name. “Essay Title”. Collection Title, edited by Editor's Name(s), City, Publisher, Publication Date, pages.

Harris, Muriel. “Talk to Me: Engaging Reluctant Writers”. A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One, edited by Ben Rafoth, London, Heinemann, 2000, pp. 24-34.

If you include several works written by the same person, they must be ordered chronologically. The name of the author should be replaced by four low dashes and a period:

____. Book Title. City, Publisher, Publication Date.

If you include more than one work by the same author published in the same year, you may add lowercase letters to each year (2018a, 2018b, etc.).

If the work referred to has several authors, the first author should be cited by surname and first name, followed by the names and surnames of the other authors separated by semicolons. The conjunction "and" should be used to introduce the last author. The same instructions should be followed for editors and coordinators of monographs.

Note 1: In the Spanish version of the article, when indicating who are the editors or directors of a collective monograph, the (ed.) or (dir.) should be used. In the English and French version, the "edited by" or “édité par” indicated in MLA should be used.

Note 2: Places of publication are given in the language of the article: Paris, London, Madrid. Similarly, if there are quotation marks or hyphens in the title, the rules for their use will follow those of the language of the article.

— Articles in general journals

Author(s). "Title of article." Title of the journal, day Month (abridged) year, pp.

Poniewozik, James. “TV Makes a Too-Close Call”. Time, 20 Nov. 2000, pp. 70-71.

— Newspaper articles

Same as in general journals:

Brubaker, Bill. “New Health Center Targets County's Uninsured Patients”. Washington Post, 24 May 2007, p. LZ01.

If anonymous articles are involved, as is often the case in journals, the standard is as follows:

"Title of article”. Title of the newspaper, day Month (abridged) year, pages.

“Business: Global Warming's Boom Town; Tourism in Greenland”. The Economist, 26 May 2007, p. 82.

If the source consulted is an online newspaper or the online version of a newspaper, the URL will be added instead of the page, just after the comma following the year of publication. After the URL, the date of consultation will be added, following the same format as in the date of publication (day abridged month year):

García Montero, Luis. “La otra sentimentalidad”. El País, 8 Jan 1983, https://elpais.com/diario/1983/01/08/opinion/410828412_850215.html 12 Jan 2023.

— Translations and reprints

In the case of a translated work, we will indicate the information about the translation as follows:

Author. Title. Traducido por / Translated by / Traduit par Name and surname, place of publication, publisher, year.

Chartier, Roger. The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Translated by Lydia G. Cochrane, Standford, Stanford UP, 1994.

In the case of a reprint of a title, the original date of publication should be given after the title, preceded and followed by a period:

Author. Title. Year of first edition. Place of publication, publisher, year of publication.

Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence. A Theory of Poetry. 1973. Oxford, Oxford UP, 1997.

If reference is made to the editor's or translator's own material (introduction, notes, translated text, etc.), the list entry is headed and arranged accordingly, or a specific entry is included for the section cited:

Micó, José María (trad.). Dante, Comedia, Barcelona, Acantilado, 2018.

Rábade Villar, María do Cebreiro. “Estudo preliminar”. Rosalía de Castro, Cantares gallegos, Vigo, Xerais, 2021, pp. 7-126.

Angueira, Anxo (ed.). Rosalía de Castro, Follas novas, Vigo, Xerais, 2016.

4.4. Use of hyphens

The long dash (—), i.e. the dash, is used to break up text.

The opening dash is not followed by a space and the closing dash is not preceded by a space, neither in Spanish, English nor in French (MLA):

Ex. Ahora que, con motivo de su jubilación en el año 2020, han visto la luz distintas publicaciones que rinden homenaje a su legado intelectual —entre ellas, la autobiografía académica De los trabajos y los días, editada por el Servicio de Publicaciones de la USC, y la monografía Textualidades (inter)literarias: lugares de lectura y nuevas perspectivas teórico-críticas—, también Theory Now ha querido emprender un repaso razonado de su trayectoria investigadora y docente, así como de su perfil institutional.

4.5. Interviews

In interviews, the first question and the first answer are introduced by the terms "Question" and "Answer" in full, without abbreviation and in bold type:

Question:

Answer:

Thereafter, they are abbreviated with Q and R in boldface:

Q-

A-

4.6. Separation of words at the end of lines

The separation or internal division of words at the end of each line will be made taking into account the rules that apply to each language, which usually respect the syllabic division.

For English and French, we recommend consulting an authorized dictionary (Oxford, Cambridge, Larousse).

4.7. Use of inclusive language

Theory Now. Journal of Literature, Critique, and Thought recommends the use of inclusive language in all proposed scientific articles. To achieve this goal, it invites to avoid the use of the generic masculine and to consult the guidelines for a non-sexist use of language recommended by the Equality and Conciliation Unit of the University of Granada.

5. Copyright material

—  If your manuscript includes any copyright material (texts, data, tables, illustrations, photographs, figures, audio clips, video clips, film stills, or screenshots) you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder before completing the submissions. This applies both to direct (verbatim or facsimile) reproduction and to “derivative reproduction” (when you have created a new figure or table which derives substantially from a copyrighted source).

—  You must make sure that appropriate acknowledgement is given to the permission granted to you for reuse by the copyright holder in each figure or table caption. You are solely responsible for any fees that the copyright holder may charge for reuse.

—  The reproduction of short extracts, excluding poetry and song lyrics, for the purposes of criticism may be possible without formal permission provided that the quotation is reproduced accurately and full attribution is given.