Author Guidelines

Interdisciplinary Journal of Didactics establishes these guidelines that authors must follow when submitting manuscripts. Failure to comply will result in the rejection of the manuscript. For any information or related queries please write to the journal's contact email address. Once the manuscript has been submitted, authors must communicate with the assigned editors using the platform’s “Discussions” tool.

The journal publishes scientific research articles and book reviews on the topics listed in the Aims and Scope section.

Deadlines for submitting papers to the “Monographic Dossier” section will be set out in a Call for Papers, which will be published in the Announcements section and on the journal’s home page. Submissions for the “Miscellaneous” and “Book Review” sections are open year-round. However, no editorial activities will be carried out by the journal during the holiday period in August.

In addition to these guidelines, authors are advised to consult all relevant sections of the journal’s website before submitting, such as our peer review process , publication ethics policy , artificial intelligence use policy, our anti-plagiarism policy, etc.

1 Requirements

Before submitting a scientific article, authors should make sure that the work meets the following general requirements:

  1. Originality. The work is original; it is not a translation, has not been published, and is not currently under review by another journal.
  2. Compliance with the submission procedure. Manuscripts must be submitted via the journal’s platform. To do so, authors must log in via the platform or register to create a user profile if they do not already have an account. Registered authors are advised to add their ORCID identifier to their profile.
  3. Languages. Manuscripts are published in Spanish, Catalan, English and French.
  4. Authorship. Authors must provide on the platform:
    • Name and surnames.
    • Main institutional or professional affiliation (written in full, without acronyms).
    • Country.
    • Email address (preferably institutional or professional).
    • ORCID identifier (https://orcid.org/XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX).

    When giving their name and surnames, authors are advised to follow the format recommended for indexing in international databases (see the FECYT [Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology] recommendations for standardising formats of author names and email addresses).

  5. Manuscript Requirements:
    • Text file format will be Microsoft Word (.docx) or Open Document Text (.odt).
    • Manuscripts must be fully anonymised: author names and institutional affiliations should be removed and replaced with the label “Author” or “Author(s)”. Any other elements that could directly or indirectly reveal the identity of the authors must be deleted and marked as anonymised.
    • The manuscript must not include any information regarding conflicts of interest, authorship and contributions, funding sources, or acknowledgements.
  6. Cover letter. Authors must complete and submit the following cover letter (.docx), which includes information on:
    • The originality and relevance of the work.
    • Competing interests.
    • Copyright and ownership of images, figures, etc.
    • Use of artificial intelligence.
    • Authorship and contributions.
    • Sources of funding.
    • Acknowledgements.
  7. Tables and Figures. Tables that have not been created with the word processor, i.e. that have been inserted into the work as an image, and figures (images, photographs, graphs, diagrams, etc.) should be attached in separate files. Files should preferably be provided in vector graphics format (SVG). If this is not possible, they should be provided in raster format (JPEG, GIF, TIFF, etc.) at the highest quality available.
  8. Datasets: The datasets used in the research that led to the work may be attached in separate files in .xlsx, csv, or ods format. If the article is published, the data will be deposited alongside the work and will be linked by the same persistent identifier.

2 Research articles

Research articles may consist of original research, case studies or systematic reviews, conforming to the standards of the scientific community for each type of work.

2.1 Structure

The following elements must be provided at the beginning of the manuscript:

  • Title: The title must be clear, concise, and informative (avoid rhetorical expressions or questions), and unambiguous, without acronyms or overly specific terms. It should include keywords that define the subject of the article.
  • Abstract: The abstract (between 200 and 300 words) should be a single paragraph placed immediately before the main body of the text. It is recommended that it includes four elements: objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions. Narrative abstracts are also accepted, provided they contain the above information. No subsections or citations should be included.
  • Keywords: A minimum of six keywords must be provided, there is no maximum number, separated by semicolons. Terms from Interdisciplinary Didactics and common terms in the relevant field will be provided. Consider including terms that help contextualise the article:
    • Topical (themes, concepts, ideas): e.g., climate change; geography; history of industrialization; gender perspective in the classroom; civic awareness; skills; lifelong learning; terminology from diverse disciplines; etc.
    • Geographical (place names): e.g., Andalusia; Salamanca (Spain); Buenos Aires; Argentina; South America; Europe; etc.
    • Chronological (periods, historical context): e.g., 1984; 2010-2020; 20th century; etc.
    • Onomastic (names of people, entities): e.g., United Nations (UN); UNESCO; OECD; European Union; etc.

Following these guidelines will improve the article’s visibility on the internet and in academic databases.

The title, abstract and keywords shall be provided in the original language of the paper and also in English.

The text of research articles should be structured in the following sections:

  1. Introduction: It will include the basis (theoretical framework) and the objectives of the study. It will clearly and precisely state the main purpose of the research, specifying the phenomenon, problem, or relationship under study, and using only the bibliographic references that are strictly necessary. It will not include data or conclusions from the presented work, or provide a detailed literature review.
  2. Methodology: This should be presented with appropriate detail, providing sufficient information about the empirical work conducted to enable an understanding of the research process and its reproducibility. Previously published sources and methods should be described only briefly and accompanied by the relevant citations, unless modifications have been made to them. Where applicable, the calculation of the sample size and the sampling method used in each case should be described. Reference will be made to the type of analysis used (documentary, critical, statistical, etc.). If an original methodology is employed, the reasons for its use must be explained, and its potential limitations described. If artificial intelligence tools were used in the research, this will be indicated in this section in accordance with our policy.
  3. Results: The results obtained by applying the relevant methodology will be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, or figures, and the same data should not be repeated across these sections. Significant points will be emphasised.
  4. Discussion: The author’s own viewpoints will be compared with other relevant studies, highlighting the strengths and limitations of each. Data or other material already discussed in other sections should not be repeated in detail.
  5. Conclusions: This section will summarise the conclusions that can be drawn from the results and their discussion.

The maximum length of the paper shall be 7,500 words and shall include all elements: title, abstract, keywords (and the translation of these three elements into English), text of the article, notes and bibliographical references.

2.2 Format

2.2.1 Style guide

Submissions should follow these general style or formatting guidelines:

  • The pages should be A4 size with 3 cm margins.
  • Only one font type should be used in the text; this may be: Aptos, Arial, Calibri, Liberation Sans, Liberation Serif or Times New Roman. The text font size should be 12 points. The title should be 18 points.
  • Paragraphs should be fully justified and single-spaced.
  • Sections and subsections shall be numbered, titled and written in a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters.
  • Typographical devices used for emphasis (capital letters, bold type, etc.) should be avoided, except where necessary.
  • Only standard, universally accepted abbreviations should be used. When shortening a term that appears frequently in the text, the abbreviation should be given in brackets alongside the full term the first time it appears.
  • The use of footnotes should be kept to a minimum; their content should preferably be incorporated into the main text, and they should be reserved exclusively for clarifications that cannot be included in the text or listed as a bibliographical reference.
  • Do not use a hyphen (—) in the bibliography. All references must include the authors’ first names and surnames.

2.2.2 Metadata

The first or second page of the article will be reserved for metadata. Only four elements will be included:

  • Title: It will be written in upper and lower case, in the original language and in English.
  • Abstract: The text should be presented in a single paragraph, in the original language and in English. These should be preceded by the headings "Resumen" and "Abstract".
  • Keywords: They should be separated by semicolons (;), in the original language and in English. They should be preceded by the headings "Keywords" and "Palabras clave".
  • Use of artificial intelligence: Please state whether or not artificial intelligence tools were used in drafting the text, in accordance with our policy. This information is important for verifying the originality of the work and preventing plagiarism.

The text of the article will start on a new page.

2.2.3 Tables and Figures

All tables and figures (images, photographs, drawings, charts, diagrams, etc.) must be placed in the appropriate position within the text, rather than at the end of the document, and must be numbered and captioned. Only those elements which, due to their relevance, are necessary to support the arguments set out in the text should be included.

Each item should be clearly labelled with its number and title, as in the following examples:

Table 3. Distribution of data by subject
Figure 7. Representation

Each item must also include a caption indicating the source. Examples:

Source: Author’s own
Source: UNESCO

Each table, figure, or other such element should be referred to in the text of the article by its corresponding number (e.g. Table 1, Figure 2). Examples:

…as detailed in Table 3… | …as shown in Figure 2… | Table 1 shows…

Any tables or figures included in an article must be the work of the article’s author(s); otherwise, they must be free of copyright or covered by Creative Commons licences that permit their reuse and specify the permitted uses. If the authors use copyright-protected material, they must have sought and obtained authorisation from the copyright holders.

3 Book reviews

The maximum length of book reviews will be 3,000 words and will follow the rules indicated for articles as far as possible. At least 3 terms should be included in the keyword section.

The maximum age of the books to be reviewed is three years.

In the ‘Abstract’ section, the following bibliographic data must be indicated: author's surname and first name, title of the book, publisher and ISBN.

With regard to bibliographical references, at least the reference to the book reviewed shall be indicated.

4 Citations and bibliographical references

Manuscripts submitted to the Interdisciplinary Journal of Didactics will adapt in-text citations and the final list of bibliographical references to the standards of the 7th edition of the APA style guide. You can also consult the APA style guide (PDF) of the Library of the University of Alicante.

After the conclusions, the article will end with a section entitled ‘Bibliographical references’ in which all the works cited throughout the article will be placed, following an alphabetical and chronological criterion, if there are several works by the same author. It is important that each bibliographical reference, except those ending with a URL or DOI, ends with a full stop and that a line break is left.

4.1 Digital Object Identifier

If the publication has a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), it must appear at the end of the entry as a secure URL link, without prefixes or a final full stop. The DOI replaces any web address in the reference.

CrossRef’s Simple Text Query can be used for checking DOIs included in a reference list.