Peer-review process
At ELA every article and note submitted undergoes a double-blind, peer-reviewed process. The aforementioned assessment is done following this procedure:
1. Texts go through a preliminary review by the journal’s Editorial Board where the manuscript is evaluated on whether or not it reports the results of original research and has the adequate structure and coherence, as well as on its thematic pertinence in terms of the profile of the publication. This preliminary review is conducted by a member of the Editorial Board whose field of expertise is the one closest to the topic of the paper. When the result of the preliminary review is inconclusive, the text being evaluated receives a new and final review by a different member of the Editorial Board. This stage lasts no more than two weeks.
2. Texts that have been approved in the preliminary review are submitted to the double-blind review of two experts in the field of the proposed work. At least one of the reviewers must be attached to an institution different from the sponsor of ELA, the ENALLT-UNAM. They can be experts in any academic institution, either national or international.
The board is responsible for the selection of the reviewers and evaluate their work.
3. When an expert is asked to review a submission, she/he is asked to give a positive or negative response regarding her/his availability to perform the task within the first week of the request. If the expert gives a positive response, she/he is asked to submit the report in a maximum of 40 days.
4. To evaluate the work, the reviewer receives a format where the criteria that are to be the basis for the analysis are explicitly pointed out to guide her/him when issuing her/his recommendation: originality of the research, contribution to the field, command of the topic and of the contents by the author, organization, coherence, methodology, theoretical framework, suitability of the references, etc. The recommendation issued must correspond to one of the following options: a) publish the manuscript in its current state; b) publish it with minor changes; c) publish it under the condition that certain essential problems are solved d) do not publish it.
5. When there are substantial differences in opinion among the two reviewers of a given text, a third review is requested. When a third review is necessary, the evaluation process may take up to a month longer.
6. When a paper receives at least one conditioned review, the revised version is submitted to the referee/reviewer who conditioned the text in order to determine if the problems were solved or not.
7. Based on the evaluation of the reviews undergone by the paper, the Editorial Board makes the final decision about the publication of the paper.
8. The authors receive an answer from the Board, regardless of the outcome of the evaluation, in a maximum of 6 months.
9. When the article is suitable for publication, but the author has to make some minor amendments that will not require scrutiny by the reviewer, the author will have a maximum of 15 days to send the corrected manuscript. When the article is conditioned to the solution of major problems in order to consider it suitable for publication, and thus the second version is to be subjected to the scrutiny of the reviewer, the author will have a maximum of 30 days to send the corrected article. If the author fails to meet the established deadlines, the Editorial committee shall have the right to withdraw the article from the publication process.