Letras (Lima) is a research journal from San Marcos University’s Faculty of Art and Humanities, which was founded in 1929 by Dean José Gálvez Barrenechea. Letras journal is a publication aimed at enhancing the original scientific communication, based on the results of researches performed in the humanistic field.

This journal is a biannual journal that is published in the months of July and December; it is aimed at researchers in the scientific community in Humanities. As well as researchers from Social Sciences due to their interdisciplinary investigations performed.

1. Aims

• Publishing scientific papers in the field of Art and Humanities, which are based on investigation, mainly at San Marcos’s Faculty of Art, international cooperation is included too.
• Enriching the presence and social values of Humanities based on the construction of knowledge aimed at scientific instruments.
• Contributing to the consolidation of a humanistic scientific community national and international.
• Promoting the investigation in Humanities by enhancing the critical aspects of our daily routines, social and political.
• Encouraging multidisciplinary investigation aimed at Humanities.
• Publicizing an open access peer-reviewed journal and by complying with the guidelines and standards required by International indexed services.
• Encouraging the best practices during the investigation and academic ethics.

2. Research Topics

Viewpoints on literature, linguistics, art, conservation, philosophy, social communication, information and social science are paramount.

3. Editorial staff

The Editor Committee is in charge of reviewing the incoming manuscripts and of ensuring their scientific qualities. Also, by preventing the publication of bad practices as a result of an investigation and by supporting the management of the incoming manuscripts. The committee is liable of the approval or rejection of a manuscript based on the appropriate review (peer-review).

Letras requires information from authors (institution, email, etc.). Also, it keeps informed their collaborators about the estimated time (one month maximum), reviewing (two months maximum), manuscript acceptance; as well as, criteria and procedures to be followed (verification list (previous reviewing), manuscript structure y quotes norms).

3.1      Editorial Process: Peer-Review

The peer-review reviewers (double blind) ensure a thorough manuscript review based on quality criteria, credibility, advisability, and feasibility of the investigation before publishing it. The article peer-review revision uses a test or evaluation; experts or reviewers are not enlisted as part of the staff.

3.2      Revision Principles

Manuscripts need to be original and unpublished, originality is paramount.

• Work Review, are reviewed by two experts specialized in the subject.
• Objectiveness, reviewers taking part in the reviewing process must respect authors’ values and intellectual freedom. All types of investigation must be taken into account even the ones showing negative results.
• Honesty, people involved in the reviewing process must have a concise and objective view upon evaluating the manuscripts.
• Confidentiality, it is mandatory to keep confidentiality about the contents of the manuscripts and authors.
• Manuscripts acceptance or rejection, they need to comply with the required principles; journal’s lines of investigation or scientific aims compliance; originality and not scientific fraud.
• Retraction of published Articles, this is due to the reliability of the results, errors, source or reference omission, scientific fraud (data handling, text plagiarism or copy, etc.). The journal is entitled to publish the retraction information even when the particular article is not disregarded from publication.
• Conflict of interest, reviewers involved in academical, work, or personal relationship with the author are not to be considered as part of the reviewing process.

3. Original Presentation

3.1      Authorship Guidelines

Authors need to ensure data and results as valid information in order to prevent forgery, improvisation, distortion or manipulation. All sorts of Plagiarism, multiple or redundant publication, as well as improvisation or data manipulation are considered as major unethical offenses and scientific frauds. It is mandatory not to deliver the same manuscript to other journals while revision is being taken place.

The journal requires authors to adhere to the ethical standards required of researchers and scientific writing. Specifically, the journal requires all authors to adhere to the ethical standards as prescribed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

3.2      Sources

Citations need to be referred from original sources but not from irrelevant origins, in order to be included in the publications.

References

Committee on Publication Ethics (2011). Code of conduct and best practice guidelines for journal editors. http://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors.pdf.

Consejo Superior de investigaciones Científicas (201?). Revistas CSIC: Guía de buenas prácticas para la publicación. http://revistas.csic.es/public/guia_buenas_practicas_CSIC.pdf.

Revistas Abiertas (201?). Guía de buenas prácticas para revistas académicas de acceso abierto. http://www.revistasabiertas.com/guias-buenas-practicas/.

Wager, E., & Kleinert, S. (2010). Responsible research publication: international standards for authors. En 2^nd World Conference on Research Integrity, World Scientific Publishing. http://publicationethics.org/files/International%20standards_authors_for%20website_11_Nov_2011.pdf.