Focus and Scope

Letras Verdes, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Socioambientales, is addressed to researchers, students and organizations with social and environmental affinity, at a local and  regional. 

The journal has 3 main sections:

  • Dossier: includes articles that contribute to the dissemination and discussion of social and environmental matters. The theme of each dossier is proposed by the Editorial Board of the journal; other subject-matter proposals are accepted for consideration.
  • Essay: includes articles on socio-environmental researches (must be a concluded research); not related to the Dossier.
  • Topicality: opinion articles on contemporary socio-environmental matters; not related to the Dossier.

 Articles on any subject-matter are received any time of the year. 

Mission

Letras Verdes, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Socioambientales, is a space of scientific knowledge dissemination regarding social and environmental issues with regional and local focus. It specializes in thoughts about sustainability, ecology, climate change, biodiversity, food sovereignty, energy and environment, mineral and petroleum, etc. The journal’s standards are the scientific consistency, the respect to ethics and the excellence in the aim to project a critic thinking from the Latin-American academy.

Peer Review Process

 Peer Review Deadlines

All articles received by the journal Letras Verdes follow a thorough review process. First, there is a verification process to determine if authors comply with publication norms, after which the articles is considered as “received”. In case of not complying with publication norms, authors will be notified the article was not received and the editorial process will be interrupted.

Then each article is sent (anonymously) to two peer reviewers, from which their opinion is considered by the Editorial Council of the journal to decide if the article can be “published”, “published with minor changes”, “modified to be reevaluated”, or “rejected”. This process can take up to four months. If the article is accepted, an editing process will begin that can take approximately two months.

 

 

Publication Frequency

 Every six months Letras Verdes makes a call for papers related to a specific topic of the Dossier, which may be research results, current debates, or academic analysis from a specific socio-environmental issue of interest.

The journal also receives year-round original contributions related to the field of socio-environmental studies.

Open Access Policy

 The journal Letras Verdes gives open access to its contents, based on the principle that offering the public free access to investigations, promotes and improves global knowledge exchange.

 Archiving

 This journal uses LOCKSS to create a storage system distributed among participating libraries and it allows the creation of permanent files in the journal with conservation and restoration purposes. Más...

 

Presentation

Letras Verdes. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Socioambientales, is a biannual electronic publication of the Masters in Socio-Environmental Studies, associated to the Department of Development, Environment and Territory of FLACSO Ecuador. The journal is addressed to researchers, students and organizations interested in socio-environmental issues at a local, regional and global level. The first issue came out in March 2008 with the purpose of contributing to the debate on socio-environmental issues through the considerations of students, academics, and other actors from around the world, disseminate initiatives from academic research, and serve for the socialization and communication of current socio-environmental issues.

This journal focuses in the reflection on sustainability. The themes include political ecology, ecological economy, urban ecology, climate change, environmental policy and management, biodiversity, conservation, food sovereignty, sustainability indicators, agroecology, socio-environmental issues related to water resources, solid waste, tourism, environmental justice, energy, mining and oil, risks and natural disasters, environmental education, social movements and social participation.

Since 2008 the journal has added collaborators, authors and peer reviewers, which has allowed to consolidate it as an academic reference in socio-environmental studies, specially in Latin America.

Letras Verdes is included in the following databases and catalogs: 

 

 

 

Statement of ethical guidelines in research and publication

The editorial team of Letras Verdes will make sure editors, peer reviewers and authors comply with ethical norms throughout the entire publishing process. These norms are detailed below.

Authors, editors, evaluators and reviewers must state if there is any conflict of interest or disability. Transparency is essential in scientific research and in the peer review process. If an author, editor, evaluator or reviewer has an opinion, financial interest or personal interest that may affect their objectivity, or may influence in an inappropriate manner, they must abstain from participating in the editorial process.

Conflict can exist as a result of personal relationships, academic competition and intellectual passion. However, the most evident conflict of interest arises from direct financial relationships (employment, stock ownership, grants, patents) and indirect relationships (fees, consulting promoting organizations, ownership of investment funds, paid expert testimony).


In the case of authors, if there is any relationship that may constitute a conflict (even if the person believes the relationship will not affect their judgement) it should be communicated to Letras Verdes. A written confirmation of this situation will be required if the article is accepted, but must be communicated informally the moment of submission. The journal may use this information as the basis for editorial decisions, and may require more details if the journal considers it can be important for the readers when judging the manuscript. The journal may also decide not to publish the article in case of a declared conflict. Editors, evaluators and reviewers should also inform the Editorial Council of Letras Verdes if there is any relationship that may constitute a conflict (even if the person believes the relationship will not affect their judgement).

Authors should avoid inappropriate conduct during the research and publication process. The publication of data or conclusions that were not generated through experimentation or observation, but by invention or data manipulation is known as fraud. There are two types of fraud in scientific research and publication: the production of data (inventing results to be able to communicate or record them later) and the falsification of data (manipulation of research material, images, data, equipment or process; including the modification or withholding of crucial results).

In addition, authors should avoid plagiarism, which is when another person's work is used without their permission, mentioning or recognizing. There are various forms of plagiarism: literal copy (reproduce another work word by word, entirely or partially, without permission or mentioning of its original source), substantial copy (related to research material, processes, tables or equipment), paraphrasing (reproduce another person's ideas without copying them word by word, without permission of mentioning of its original source), and recycling a text (reproduce parts of a personal work and submitting it as an entirely new article to be published).

Authors should avoid simultaneous or multiple submission, or duplicating a publication. Simultaneous submission means sending an article to different publishers at the same time, with the possibility that more than one journal publish the article. Duplicate or multiple publication is considered when two or more articles share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points and/or conclusions, without being cross-referenced to each other. This can occur in different levels such as literal duplication, partial but substantial duplication or duplication through paraphrasing. It also applies to translations where the original work is not cited.

There are two main criteria to be recognized as an author:

• To have contributed substantially in the research conception and design, in data collection, or in the analysis and interpretation of the study.
• To have drafted or revised the intellectual content of the article.

People who participated in the study but do not meet at least one of these criteria, should appear as “collaborators” or under a subtitle of “appreciation to”. Some examples include advice collaborators, research spaces or institutional and academic supervision, or providing financial support.

There are three types of authorship that are considered unacceptable:

Falsifying the relationship between the scientific and his work (including names of people who participated little or had no participation in the research study), withholding names of people who did participate (which includes submitting a work without the permission of one of the authors or contributors), and ghost authorship (which refers to the role of professional writers that are not recognized). Unrecognized contributions to data analysis may also constitute ghost authorship.

Honorary authorship, as a guest, is based on the affiliation with the study, or with the expectation that including a particular name will improve the possibility of the article being published.

Authors must avoid fragmentation, which consists in dividing or segmenting a large study in two or more publications. These segments are called “fragments” of a study, which share the same hypothesis, population and methods. The reason to avoid fragmentation is that it may lead to literature distortion, making readers believe that each fragment comes from a different research with different samples.

According to the above mentioned, authors must:

• Declare to have read and understood the requirements to send articles according to the editorial of this journal; verify that the article is based on an original research; declare that the article has not been previously published or simultaneously sent to other publishers.

Regarding peer reviewers, they must:

• Strictly adhere to the evaluation process policies of this journal.
• Respond request forms and send assessments on time.
• Make a rigorous and methodic assessment, given the level of expertise of peer reviewers. • Respect confidentiality of information linked to the editorial process.

Regarding editors, they must:

• Guarantee transparency in evaluation and publication processes.
• Guarantee an objective dialogue and confidentiality of all parties involved in the editorial process.
• Respond promptly and with respect to questions and notifications.

Articles that comply with publication norms of the editorial policy will be declared as “received” and the author will be notified of its reception. Otherwise, they will be returned without an evaluation.
Articles are analyzed to determine if they are relevant for the socio-environmental field of study. If so, a comprehensive review is conducted to verify if the article follows all publication norms.
Articles that follow all requirements are sent to peer reviewers external from Letras Verdes, who make a quality assessment in terms of references used and cited, contribution to knowledge and originality, clarity and innovation in its arguments, quality of the writing and relevance. The evaluation occurs under the method of “double-blind anonymous”.

After the peer review authors will receive a message with their opinion and judgement, which can be that the article is: accepted, accepted with minor changes, must be modified to reevaluate, or rejected.
During the final phase, modifications of previously approved articles are reviewed and style copyediting is made before the final publication.