About the Journal

Aims and Scope

Revista Iberoamericana de Argumentación (RIA) is an annual open access online journal whose aim is to present developments and results of contemporary researches within the field of Argumentation Studies. Besides, it aims at being an open forum for summoning, encouraging and gathering current concerns, debates, programs and projects within this field, paying special attention to the academic and cultural Ibero-American context.

RIA will publish works, essays and contributions on topics belonging to areas such as Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, Philosophy of Language, Logic, Argumentation Theory, Critical Thinking, Rhetoric and Public Discourse. The main languages of the journal are Spanish and Portuguese, but contributions in other academic languages are also welcome.

Peer Review Process

RIA will publish original articles, reviews and critical notes on the characteristic topics of the journal. Contributions will be published according to current academic standards of scientific rigor, quality and academic excellence, including a doubly blind referee system. The referees would be preferably selected among scholars external to both the journal and its publishing institution.

Good Practices Guide

1 Editorial Team
The Editorial Board of the Revista Iberoamericana de Argumentación (hereinafter referred to as the Journal) is responsible for the published contents, and therefore must ensure their scientific quality, avoid bad practices in the publication of research results, and manage the publication of the papers received within a reasonable time. For the proper performance of its functions, the Editorial Board will be assisted by the Advisory Board to obtain previous reports and, if necessary, to designate the reviewers of the proposals, in accordance with the procedure established in this Guide.
This responsibility implies observance of the following principles:
1.1 Impartiality
The Editorial Board must manage impartially the works proposed for publication and must respect the intellectual independence of the authors, who must be granted the right to reply in the event of a negative evaluation.
1.2 Confidentiality
The members of the Editorial Board are under the obligation to maintain confidentiality regarding the texts received and their content until they have been accepted for publication. Only then may their title and authorship be disclosed. Likewise, no member of the Editorial Board may use data, arguments or interpretations contained in unpublished works for his or her own research, except with the express written consent of the authors.
1.3 Submission review
The Editorial Board must ensure that the published research papers have been evaluated by at least two specialists in the field, and that the review process has been fair and impartial. The following contributions are considered research papers and are therefore subject to peer review: articles, critical notes and debates.
The Journal performs a peer review of research papers received for publication by the double-blind procedure. When one of the two evaluations is negative, a third report will be requested.
The Editorial Board must ensure the originality and unpublished nature of the works received and must guarantee that the evaluation process also monitors these aspects and detects plagiarism, self-plagiarism and redundant or duplicate publication, understood as the total, partial or altered copy of a work published by the same author to make it appear different, as well as falsified or manipulated data.
The Editorial Team should value and be grateful for the contribution of those who have collaborated in the evaluation of the papers submitted to the journal or collection. Likewise, it should encourage the academic authorities to recognize peer review activities as part of the scientific process and should dispense with those who perform evaluations of low quality, incorrect, disrespectful or delivered outside the established deadlines.
1.4 Acceptance or rejection of submissions
The responsibility for accepting or rejecting a paper for publication rests with the Editorial Board, which should base its decision on the reports received. These reports should reason their opinion on the quality of the papers in terms of relevance, originality and clarity of exposition. The Editorial Board may directly reject the papers received, without resorting to an external consultation process, if it considers them inappropriate for lacking the required level of quality, for not being in line with the scientific objectives of the journal, or for presenting evidence of scientific fraud.
1.5 Disallowance and notice of irregularity
The Editorial Board reserves the right to disavow those articles already published whose unreliability is subsequently determined as a result of both unintentional errors and fraud or bad scientific practices: fabrication, manipulation or copying of data, plagiarism and self-plagiarism of texts and redundant or duplicate publication, omission of references to the sources consulted, use of contents without permission or without justification, etc. The objective guiding the disavowal is to correct the scientific production already published, ensuring its integrity.
The conflict of duplicity, caused by the simultaneous publication of an article in two journals, must be resolved by determining the date of receipt of the work in each of them. If only part of the article contains an error, it can be rectified later by means of an editorial note or an erratum. In case of conflict, the Journal will ask the author(s) for explanations and evidence to clarify it and will make a final decision based on these.
The Journal will obligatorily publish the news about the disavowal of a certain text and the reasons for such measure must be mentioned in it, in order to distinguish malpractice from unintentional error. Likewise, the Journal will notify those responsible for the institution to which the author(s) of the article belong(s) of the disavowal. The decision to disavow a text should be taken as soon as possible, so that the erroneous work will not be cited in its field of research.
De-authorized articles will be retained in the electronic edition of the journal, clearly and unequivocally warning that it is a de-authorized article, in order to distinguish it from other corrections or comments. As a prior step to the final disavowal of an article, the journal may issue a notice of irregularity, providing the necessary information in the same terms as in the case of a disavowal. The notice of irregularity will be maintained for the minimum time necessary and will conclude with its withdrawal or with the formal disavowal of the article.
1.6 Application of the Regulatory Standard
Journal Direction is responsible for the correct application of the rules that regulate the functioning of the Editorial Board and must ensure that its members are aware of them. These functions are: to promote and represent the journal in the different forums; to suggest and support possible improvements; to seek the collaboration of specialists of reference in the field; to review, in a first evaluation, the papers received; to write editorials, reviews, comments, news, reviews, etc.; to attend the meetings of the Editorial Board.
1.7 Rules for Authorship
The rules for submission of original manuscripts (regarding the characteristics of the work, the format and resolution of the images, the system for bibliographical references, etc.) should be published in the Journal's website.
1.8 Conflict of interest
A conflict of interest arises when a work received in the journal is signed, among other possible situations, by a person who is part of the Editorial Team, by someone who has a direct personal or professional relationship, or by someone who is closely related to the past or present research of the member of the Editorial Team.
Specifically, the members of the Editorial Team must abstain from handling an original when they incur in any of these or similar situations:
- being related to a family member,
- friendship or manifest enmity,
- being part of the same research group,
- participate or have participated in the direction or co-direction of a doctoral thesis in the last 5 years,
- have defended a doctoral thesis under the direction or co-direction of the author(s) in the last 5 years,
- collaborate or have collaborated in publications or patents in the last 5 years,
- collaborate in other economic or scientific-technological activities,
- having a contractual relationship or sharing funds or national or international research projects, from public or private entities, or of any other nature, in the last 3 years.
The Editorial Team will also refrain from selecting reviewers who are or may be affected by any of these situations. The Editorial Board will include the reasons for abstention in the evaluation form, so that the reviewer has the opportunity to know them and, if necessary, to abstain.

2 Authorship guidelines
The Journal will publish articles, notes, editions of classic texts and reviews on topics corresponding to the areas of Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis, Philosophy of Language, Logic, Argumentation Theory, Critical Thinking, Rhetoric and Public Discourse. The distinctive languages of the Journal are Spanish and Portuguese, but contributions in any other language of the academic community will also be accepted. Its publication will be governed by the current standards of rigor, quality and academic excellence, including the system of anonymous double refereeing.
The authors of the texts submitted for publication in the Journal are primarily responsible for their content, and are therefore obliged to apply an ethical standard designed to ensure their originality and due attribution of authorship, among other aspects. Inappropriate behavior may result in the disavowal of published content, as established in sections 1.5 and 1.6 of this Guide. In addition to its ethical assessment, improper conduct may result in the infringement of its own or third parties' rights, for which reason the entity responsible for publishing the journal reserves the right to take appropriate legal action.
2.1 Rules for publication
The texts submitted for publication must be the result of original and unpublished research. They must include the data obtained and used, as well as an objective discussion of the results.
Sufficient information must be provided so that any specialist can reproduce the research carried out and confirm or refute the interpretations defended in the work. Authors should adequately mention the origin of the ideas or literal phrases taken from other published works in the manner indicated in the rules of the journal or collection. When images are included as part of the research, it should be conveniently explained how they were created or obtained, as long as it is necessary for their understanding. In the case of total or partial reproduction of graphic material (figures, photos, maps, etc.) previously published, the source should be cited, providing the pertinent reproduction permissions if necessary.
2.2 Originality and plagiarism
Authors must ensure that the data and results presented in the work are original and have not been copied, invented, distorted or manipulated. Plagiarism in all its forms, self-plagiarism, multiple or redundant publication, as well as the invention or manipulation of data constitute serious misconduct and are considered scientific fraud.
Authors shall not send to RIA originals that have been previously submitted to another editor, nor shall they send that original to another editor until they receive notification of its rejection or voluntarily withdraw it. However, it is permissible to publish a paper that expands on a paper that has already appeared as a research note, provided that the text on which it is based is properly cited and that the modifications involve a substantial change to what has already been published. Secondary publications are also acceptable if they are aimed at totally different readers; for example, if the work is published in different languages or if there is a version for specialists versus another aimed at the general public. These circumstances should be specified and the original publication should be appropriately cited.
2.3 Autorship
In the case of multiple authorship, the person responsible for the contribution must ensure that those who have contributed significantly to the conception, planning, design, execution, data collection, interpretation and discussion of the results of the work are acknowledged; in any case, all the persons signing the contribution share the responsibility for the work presented. Likewise, the person who acts as responsible and contact person must ensure that those who sign it have reviewed and approved the final version of the work and give their approval for its possible publication. The person responsible for the work must ensure that none of the signatures responsible for the work have been omitted, nor have others been added that are not, thus satisfying the aforementioned criteria of co-authorship, avoiding fictitious or gift authorship, which is a bad scientific practice.
Likewise, the contribution of other persons who are not listed as signatories or responsible for the final version of the work should be acknowledged in an appropriate manner, as a way of thanking them. If the Editorial Board deems it necessary or if the signatories of the contribution request it, the individual contribution of each member of the signatory group to the collective work should be described briefly in the published version.
2.4 Sources of information and funding
The text of the paper should acknowledge the publications that have influenced the research, so the original sources on which the information contained in the paper is based should be identified and cited in the bibliography. However, irrelevant citations or citations referring to similar examples should not be included, and references to research already established in the corpus of scientific knowledge should not be abused. Authors should not use information obtained privately through conversations, correspondence or from discussions with colleagues in the field, unless they have explicit written permission from their source of information and such information has been received in the context of scientific advice. The publication must indicate, in a clear and concise manner, all the sources of funding granted for the study, mentioning the private or public entity responsible for such funding, and the identification code of such funding, when it exists. This information shall be included in the published work.
2.5 Significant errors in published work
When an author discovers a serious error in his or her work, he or she has the obligation to communicate it to those responsible for the journal or collection as soon as possible, in order to modify his or her work, withdraw it, retract it or publish a correction or erratum. If the possible error is detected by any of the members of the Editorial Team, the authors are obliged to demonstrate that their work is correct. The process for resolving these conflicts is described in sections 1.5 and 1.6.
2.6 Conflict of interest
When there are any commercial, financial or personal ties that may affect the results and conclusions of their work, the text of the work must be accompanied by a statement of these circumstances, which will appear in the published version of the work.
2.7 Submission of manuscripts
Papers should be sent in electronic format (rtf, odt) through the journal's web page or, alternatively, to the e-mail address of the journal's secretary (paula.olmos@uam.es), with a copy to the address of the journal's editor (Hubert.marraud@uam.es).
Contributions can be sent to the Journal at any time and will be published as soon as they receive a positive evaluation. Authors will be informed of the receipt of their contribution within 15 days.
Prior acceptance of a paper requires compliance with the rules of collaboration published on the journal's website, referred to in section 1.7 of this Guide.

3 Evaluation of articles, critical notes and discussions
The people involved in the evaluation process play a fundamental role in the process that guarantees the quality of the publication. They assist the Editorial Board in making editorial decisions, help to improve published works, and provide a guarantee of scientific accreditation.
3.1 Confidentiality.
Whoever carries out an evaluation must consider the work to be reviewed as a confidential document until its publication, both during and after the review process. Under no circumstances should he/she disseminate or use the information, details, arguments or interpretations contained in the text under review for his/her own benefit or that of others, or to the detriment of third parties. Only in special cases may you seek the advice of other specialists in the field, a circumstance of which you must inform the Journal's Direction.
3.2 Objetivity
Whoever carries out an evaluation must objectively judge the quality of the complete work, i.e., including the information on which the working hypothesis is based, the theoretical and experimental data and their interpretation, without neglecting the presentation and writing of the text. Likewise, he/she must specify his/her criticisms, and be objective and constructive in his/her comments. They must adequately argue their judgments, without adopting hostile positions and respecting the intellectual independence of the author of the work. The reviewer must warn the reviewer of any relevant similarity between the work submitted for review and any other work published or in the process of being reviewed in another publication of which he/she is aware. Likewise, he/she must draw attention to texts or data plagiarized from others or from the same author(s) of the evaluated work, or to the suspicion or well-founded certainty that they are falsified, invented or manipulated.
3.3 Response time
The reviewer must act promptly and must deliver his or her report within the agreed time, notifying the management of the journal or collection of any possible delays. If the reviewer does not consider him/herself capable of judging the work commissioned or considers that he/she cannot complete the task within the agreed deadline, he/she must inform the journal or collection management as soon as possible.

3.4 Verification of information sources
Whoever carries out an evaluation must verify that the relevant works already published on the subject are cited. To this end, he/she will review the bibliography included in the text, suggesting the elimination of superfluous or redundant references, or the incorporation of others that have not been cited.
3.5 Conflict of interest
The reviewer must refuse to review a work when he/she suspects or knows that it is included in any of the situations that may affect his/her judgment of the work, as described in section 1.8 of this Guide. Conflicts of interest may also arise when the work to be evaluated is closely related to the work that the reviewer is currently developing or has already published. In these cases, when in doubt, the reviewer should resign from the assignment and return the work to the Editorial Board, stating the reasons for such a decision.

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Revista Iberoamericana de Argumentación

About the Journal

Aims and Scope

Peer Review Process

Good Practices Guide

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