Submission guidelines

Open access policy

Because Sílex is an open access journal, all of its content is available in digital format without any restrictions or embargo periods, and there are no registration requirements. Therefore, any user can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the entire texts of articles, or use them for any legal purpose, without previous permission from the publisher or author.

This policy reflects our commitment to the free and universal sharing of knowledge, which makes it easier for the general public and academic community to access and reuse it.

In line with its commitment to the democratization of knowledge and open access, Sílex journal does not charge for the reception, review, or processing of submissions, and covers all expenses related to content editing, publication, distribution, and preservation. By not charging any fees, we ensure free, immediate, and unrestricted access for both readers and contributors.

Financial sustainability policy

Under non-profit publishing model, the journal’s publisher, Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (UARM), covers all of the journal’s operational costs, including editorial management, peer review, proofreading, layout, and digital publication.

Moreover, the journal does not take any form of commercial advertising, does not receive sponsorships or commercial agreements, and does not generate income from the sale of content. In accordance with good editorial practices, all editorial decisions are made independently and is based on academic, ethical, and scientific quality criteria.

Copyright

Authors give the journal the right to publish their work first, but they keep the copyright of their articles. All content published in Sílex journal is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY-4.0). This license allows the content to be shared, copied, and redistributed in any medium or format, as well as to be adapted, remixed, transformed, and built upon for any purpose, including commercial purposes.

Authors should note that they are unable to impose legal requirements or apply technological restrictions that limit the use of the content beyond what is allowed by the license. It is imperative that the authors and the journal are properly acknowledged whenever the works are reproduced, distributed, or made public.

Self-archiving

Sílex journal allows its authors to self-archive all versions of their articles, encouraging the widespread sharing of scientific knowledge and open access to research results.

Self-archiving is permitted on institutional, theme, or other type repositories, as well as on preprint servers without embargo periods as long as the original publishing source is properly referenced in the journal.

These versions are allowed to self-archive.

Submitted version / Preprint

Before the peer review process, authors may deposit early drafts of their manuscripts on preprint servers or open access repositories.

Author accepted manuscript, AAM

Before editorial layout, authors may deposit the version of their manuscript that has passed peer review and been approved for publishing.

Version of record

Authors may deposit the final published version of the article in the journal’s editorial format.

The self-archive must always adhere to the journal’s license and provide a full reference to the article that was published in Sílex. 

Online preservation

Sílex journal is a member of the Private Knowledge Project’s Private LOCKSS Network (PKP-PLN), a decentralized archiving system designed to guarantee the journal’s original content is permanently preserved and to facilitate its restoration in case of loss.

Privacy statement

The names and email addresses supplied in this journal will only be used for the reasons specified therein; they will not be shared with outside parties or used for any other purposes.

Review process

1. Prellimary evaluation

The first review of manuscripts will be conducted by the associate editors. They will verify the content relevance and check the basic criteria outlined in the Author guidelines. They will decide whether to accept the manuscript or request minor adjustments. If there are any noteworthy observations regarding non-compliance with these requirements, the authors will be informed why the manuscript will not be accepted. During this stage, the manuscript will be compared against other works using the Turnitin platform. Manuscripts will only move on to formal review if they make it beyond this stage.

2. Double-blind review

Sílex journal uses a double-blind peer review process, in which two or more anonymous reviewers with academic degrees comparable to or greater than the author evaluate the manuscript without knowing the author’s information. It also keeps the reviewers’ identities a secret.

Depending on the subject area or topic, the editor-in-chief and deputy editor assign two outside reviewers for each manuscript. Neither the Editorial Board nor the journal’s directors may act as reviewers. Furthermore, Sílex will provide reviewers a set of ethical evaluation guidelines based on the principles of transparency in communication, respect, and impartiality for their contributions.

Results

Reviewers should choose only one diagnostic option from the list below to grade the manuscript once it has been evaluated.

  • Accepted
    The manuscript may be published if it does not require significant revisions. Peer reviewers often suggest minimal changes, mostly in the area of formatting

  • Minor revisions
    The manuscript may be published after making the changes outlined by the peer reviewer, mostly referring to the developed topic. These enhancements will be reviewed by the editorial staff.

  • Major revisions
    The manuscript may be published after a second evaluation by the assigned reviewers, who will provide a final assessment on the authors’ revisions to their suggestions.

  • Rejection
    If the manuscript needs significant revisions to be published in the journal, or if it is deemed unacceptable from an academic viewpoint.

Guidelines for reviewers

A manuscript must be reviewed within four to five weeks of being received. In order to do this, the journal provides an evaluation rubric with clear criteria for determining whether to accept, edit, or reject the manuscript. Reviewers should also consider the following guidelines:

  • Only review submissions that fall within your area of expertise, and commit to meeting the established deadlines.
  • Be impartial and helpful; avoid disparaging or derogatory remarks.
  • Consider each author just on the basis of their qualifications, without discrimination based on race, religion, nationality, gender, seniority, or institutional affiliation.
  • Preserve the confidentiality of the peer review process.
  • Submit detailed, well-founded, and reasoned review reports
  • If there are difficulties meeting deadlines, notify the journal and, if required, ask for an extension.
  • Any significant similarities between the manuscript under review and another known publication should be reported to the journal.

Acknowledgement to reviewers

Reviewers will receive a certificate in recognition for their participation as peer reviewers.

3. Response to reviewers comments

The editor will ultimately decide whether to accept or reject the manuscript after considering the feedback and suggestions from the peer reviewers. The email address registered on the platform will be used to inform the authors of the review’s results.

Authors will have three weeks to make the recommended adjustments. If the review delays for a long time, they may request the withdrawal of their manuscript.

4. Accepted manuscripts

The Publication Guidelines for Final Versions, which will be sent via email, must be followed by the accepted manuscripts. If the manuscript has multiple authors, the “Declaration of Authorship Contribution" section must be placed at the end of the article to make clear the roles played by each author in the manuscript’s conception and elaboration.

5. Proofreading and layout editing

After receiving the final manuscripts, they will proceed to proofreading and layout editing stage. The editorial staff will give a signed authorization form for authors to submit to Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya at this step, granting permission for the articles to be reproduced, published, distributed, and used for public communication. Lastly, the article, essay, or review will be published on the journal’s online platform.

Conflict of interest policy

Conflicts of interest may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial. They may arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that could affect how manuscripts are prepared or reviewed. When submitting a manuscript, authors must recognise and declare any conflicts of interest that may have affected their work.

When reviewing a manuscript, which involves authors and reviewers, Sílex journal rigorously verifies the implementation of a policy to prevent the participation of individuals and institutions with personal, friendly, or adversarial relationships through its Editorial Board.

By ensuring the reliability of the analysis process for submitted material, this procedure aims to improve the credibility of the published articles. In this regard, authors and reviewers are requested to contact the journal’s Editorial Board if any of the following situations are found: a) personal and institutional ties and conflicts (partisan and familial) between reviewers and authors; b) financial support received for the development of the work that influences reading and could jeopardize the quality of the content produced. The author or authors must declare any possible conflicts of interest in a separate, signed document attached to the submission platform.

Anti-plagiarism and academic fraud policy

Academic fraud of any kind, including plagiarism and self-plagiarism, is strictly prohibited at Sílex. The following will not be permitted in manuscripts.

  • Plagiarism or improper paraphrasing of ideas, data, or texts without giving due credit. COPE defines plagiarism “when someone presents the work of others (data, words, or theories) as their own without proper acknowledgement” (COPE Council, n.d.)
  • Reusing fragments or quotations from one’s own work that have previously been published in research before the manuscript is submitted for journal review is known as self-plagiarism. As an exception, reusing phrases or sentences that do not exceed 20% of the previously published content in the version of the work that was submitted to the journal will be considered as an exception.
  • Fabrication, manipulation, or invention of unverifiable data and results.
  • Unjustified research fragmentation (salami slicing).
  • Deliberate omission of relevant information.

Before being submitted for blind peer review, all manuscripts are examined using anti-plagiarism software (Turnitin). As long as it aligns with properly referenced citations, a maximum of 25% text overlap is allowed; the remaining 75% must be original and written by the author or authors.

The manuscript will be rejected right away and the author or authors will be formally notified if plagiarism, fraud, or misconduct is detected. The journal will adhere to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ (COPE) guidelines, which include retracting the article and publishing an explanation note, if misbehaviour is discovered after publication.

Errata, correction and retraction policy

At Sílex journal, we are committed to upholding the integrity and quality of published research. Articles and other types of documents published in this journal will remain current, accurate, and unaltered to the extent possible. However, we recognize that exceptional circumstances may arise when an article is published and later needs to be corrected or rectified. Sílex editorial team will carefully evaluate such measures to make sure they are implemented with the highest assurances and in accordance with the guidelines suggested by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Read the outlines our policies for errata, corrections and retractions.

Policy on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools

Sílex journal allows the limited and responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help with information organization, literature classification, and other related tasks. This is possible as long as there is a guarantee of critical and verifiable human intervention in the manuscript development process.

When using these tools, authors must include a separate document that clearly states how they were used in the manuscript. This document should be titled “Declaration of AI Use,” and it should include the name, version, and URL of the tool used, as well as how it was used, why it was used, and how human control over the final content was ensured.

The use of AI does not exempt authors from their responsibility for the manuscript’s content, which must be thoroughly reviewed and edited to ensure its accuracy and relevance. AI should not be used to create or alter research data or to replace the author’s main tasks, which include creating original content, reviewing the relevance of information, and editing text, tables, and graphics.

In addition, the AI tool must be properly cited in the references section using the citation format specified by the journal. For example:

OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT GPT-4o [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

Anthropic. (2024). Claude 3.5 Sonnet [Large language model]. https://www.claude.ai/

Complaints and appeals policy

Sílex journal is committed to ensuring the integrity, impartiality, and transparency of its editorial processes. Sílex has the following process for receiving and addressing complaints, appeals, and suggestions in compliance with the international best practices advocated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), whose values guide the journal’s editorial conduct. Although COPE provides a framework of ethical standards and best practices, the journal does not assign this group the task of resolving specific cases.

The following definitions are used for the purposes of this policy.

  • Complaint. Any correspondence indicating a potential ethical violation, irregularity, or non-compliance with the journal’s editorial policies—whether related to authors, reviewers, editors, or the Editorial Board—is considered a complaint.
  • Appeal. Any formal request for review of an editorial decision based on procedural or academic grounds, such as the rejection of a manuscript.
  • Suggestion. Any recommendation or comment meant to enhance the journal’s editorial processes or quality without raising ethical concerns or challenging decisions.

Complaints, appeals, and suggestions should be sent to the journal’s institutional email address: revista.silex@uarm.pe. Clear, precise, and well-supported communications are essential. When appropriate, they should include documentation or evidence to support the claims made.

The editor-in-chief or, in the absence of that, the associate editor will determine if the communication is within the journal’s scope and if it is a complaint, appeal, or suggestion. In order to prevent conflicts of interest, a member of the editorial team who is directly involved in the complaint or appeal will not participate in the process; instead, another editor will take over.

After a thorough review, a final decision will be made. The required corrections or adjustments will be made if the complaint or appeal is upheld. Clear and reasoned explanations will be provided if the initial editorial decision is upheld. The final decision, together with a reasoned explanation of the decision and the actions taken, will also be communicated to the authors.

Following confirmation of receipt, the journal will endeavour to respond within a maximum of thirty (30) business days. When the complexity of the case requires a longer period, the person who submitted the complaint or appeal will be promptly notified of the extension and the status of the case.

The author may request Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya’s Vice-Rector for Research to review their case if they believe their complaint or appeal has not been handled properly. This authority’s decision will be definitive and binding on the journal.