Guidelines

  Table of contents

 

 Editorial Policy

Acción, the Cuban Journal of Physical Culture with e-ISSN: 1812-5808 and RNPS: 2046, is edited by the University of the Science of the Physical Culture and Sport “Manuel Fajardo”. This journal disseminates original scientific papers related to the following topics: physical education, sport training, sport, recreation and society, training of the professional of the physical culture and physical activity, and health promotion. These are published in the form of research articles, review articles, short articles, and letters to the editor. The aim is to disseminate the scientific advances and their applications in the field of the Physical Culture and Sport. The articles will be published in Spanish, English or Portuguese. In addition, the titles, summaries and keywords will be translated into English.

 

Sending of Articles

Articles must be unpublished. They should be sent by email to the address  revistaaccion.uccfd@gmail.com  . They will be received in files “.docx” (Word text processor), with size of paper 8.5 x 11 inches, and margins to 2,5 cm. Text format must be: Arial 12 point font, 1.5 line spacing, single column. The research articles will have a maximum length of 10 pages, review articles 20 pages and short articles 4 pages.

It must be preceded by a page containing the following information: title of the article in Spanish and English (up to 15 words), it should be informative; name and last names of the author (or authors); academic and scientific degree; institution (only the principal) and contacts (email), country, as well as a brief summary of the curriculum (a paragraph up to 100 words).

The selection criteria for publishing the proposed material is based on:

  • Adjustment to the publishing regulations of the journal.
  • Suitability of the subject for the journal: scientific soundness, originality, timeliness and opportunity of the information.
  • Applicability beyond the place of origin and throughout the field of physical culture and sport.
  • Respect of the ethical standards on the information management.
  • Coherence of the design (logical exposition of the problem, plan to obtain the objective of the study, results and conclusions). Lack of coherence in the design invalidates all information and will cause rejection.
  • The graphs or tables must be made at a quarter-folio size and in gray scale, and inserted in the approximate place within the text.
  • The opinions expressed by the authors are their sole responsibility and imply the transfer of copyright in writing, on behalf of the Journal “Acción”.
  • The articles will be judged in the following categories: accepted, rejected or publishable after amendments. In this last case, authors will have three weeks to make the necessary corrections and to send it again. After that period, it will be rejected as a publication.

Once submitted to the editorial opinion, the Editorial Committee will be obliged to return papers that do not meet the publication requirements.

The submission of each article must be accompanied by a letter signed by the author stating:

FIRST: I am the author of the article whose title was declared previously, and consequently main responsible for it.

SECOND: All those natural persons who have contributed substantially in the achievement of the work have been declared as authors and there is no conflict of interests between any of them for which I send the Declaration Form of Possible Conflicts of Interests established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

THIRD: I declare that this article is original and unpublished and therefore has been submitted exclusively to the Editorial Board of Acción journal, and it does not contain sensitive or classified information on any natural or legal person.

FOURTH: The authors of this work abide by the guidelines established in the Code of Conduct and Good Ethical Practices of the journal and according to this code they will settle the different cases of controversy.

FIFTH: I authorize the journal “Acción” to publish it without any charge from me, by the means or formats that the Editorial Committee determines according to the license Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC)

To prepare this document, the author must use the preform available at this address: http://accion.uccfd.cu/public/journals/2/planilla_arbitraje.pdf

 

Arbitration Process

Once the article is received, an acknowledgment of receipt will be sent to the author. After this, two specialists from the field related to the study will be selected. They will act as national or international arbitrators (Specialists in charge of evaluating articles) (more than 50% do not belong neither to the UCCFD nor to Cuba), for a scientific review of the document. During the opinion process, evaluators and authors preserve the anonymity.

All the articles will go through a blind peer-reviewed evaluation process . The articles received are distributed by the president of the Editorial Committee, with the participation of two arbitrators, who are given models in order to make the revisions and express their opinion concerning the quality of articles. Consequently, these articles can be selected or rejected by the Editorial Committee.

The outcomes of the review process can be:

  • Accepted
  • Smaller review
  • Greater review
  • Rejected

The review process will never take more than three months from the receipt of the document. If the article was classified as reviewable, authors will be able to carry out a timely review of the document, which will be returned to the editors within a month. The editors will decide if it is necessary to send the document to the arbitrators again, even if they have the authority to exercise the final opinion. No more than two reviews per document will be allowed except in exceptional cases. The rejection rate in the entire journal evaluation process is 24.17%.

In cases of controversy, in another words, when the arbitrators disagree and their opinions differ from each other (one accepted and the other rejected or accepted with modifications), an evaluation request is sent to a third arbitrator. After its verdict, the Editorial Committee weighs the three evaluations and will give the verdict of accepted, smaller review, greater review, rejected.

In the event of non compliance of the good ethical practices established in the Journal Code  and other cases of controversy, the Journal will proceed according to the Flow  Diagrams  of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for each case.

The average time from the receipt of papers to the final verdict is three months. Once approved the document, its final version will be published within a period of no longer than two weeks.

During the evaluation process, arbitrators  will take into account the following parameters:

  • Originality: The contribution must be new and original (arbitrators will use methods to detect the plagiarism).
  • Title: Concise, specific, with the adequate syntax and reflecting the content of the article in no more than 15 words.
  • Abstract: Must express the objective, methods, main results and conclusions with full correspondence between them.
  • Keywords: No more than 5 words, all necessary, standardized and descriptive of the content with correspondence between them.
  • Introduction: It must define clearly the problem, the reach and the objective of the research, the state-of-the-art and how it has been dealt by other researchers.
  • Materials and Methods: They must express the quantity and quality of the materials used. The methodology and the experimental conditions must be pertinent to the proposed objective. The statistical analyzes must be mentioned and proper.
  • Results and Discussion: Results must be clearly expressed and presented in a logical way with images, tables and figures. The interpretations must be correct and the relationship between the obtained data must stand out. Arbitrators must value the contrast of the results with other published articles, and if the possible theoretical and / or practical implications are stand out in a way that  support the conclusions.
  • References:  They must use proper sources of scientific information and that they must present an adequate percentage of current affairs. Citations in the text and the bibliography must be correctly settled according to the bibliographical style of the journal.
  • Images, Tables and Figures: All necessary, intelligible, self-explanatory and of a high quality, presented in a due course in the body of the work.
  • English: Suitable for compression of the title, abstract and keywords.
  • Dimensions: It is possible to extend, to reduce or to eliminate parts of the article.

For the arbitration form, it can be consulted at: Arbitration Form  

 

Declaration of Authorship

According to the percentage of participation of the authors in the paper, they will be placed in descending order. Only those who contributed substantially to the conception of the idea and design of the study, the acquisition and analysis of data, and to the writing of the article or its intellectual critical review, will be considered authors. The authors must have enough knowledge of the research and therefore they must be able to argue scientifically. The names of the people who have provided technical support to the article or general supervision of the research group, and the institutions which financed the project, will be placed in the acknowledgments. Only the substantial contributions will be admitted. The main author is in charge of the correct assignment of the co-authorship and of writing the acknowledgment, as well as ensuring that “invited authors” do not exist; this practice is penalized by the journal.

 

Copyright Notice

The journal publishes its contents under the license Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) . In this journal, you are allowed to:

  • Share - copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
  • Adapt - to combine, to transform and to create from the original material.

Under the following conditions:

  • Acknowledgment- You must properly acknowledge the authorship, provide a link to the license, and indicate if any changes have been made. You can make it in any reasonable way, but you cannot suggest that the article has the support of the licensor or it receives it by the use it makes.
  • Non-Commercial - You cannot use the material for a commercial purpose.

 

Structure of contributions

Research Articles

The structure of the papers will vary depending on the kind of document. Scientific articles must have:

  • Title in Spanish and English (up to 15 words)
  • Authors
  • Affiliations of authors and author’s mail address
  • Abstract (up to 200 words)
  • Keywords (up to 5 in Spanish and English)
  • Introduction
  • Materials and Methods
  • Results and Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • References

The bibliographical reviews and book reviews must have the same structure of scientific articles, but with neither Materials and Methods, nor Results and Discussion. Instead, the author can add the sections that he considers necessary. In the letters to the Editor, the title in Spanish and English, authors, their affiliations and the author's mail address cannot be missing.

Use of verb tenses

It is necessary to take into account the correct verbal tense for each section:

  • Introduction in present tense
  • Materials and Methods in past tense
  • Results in past tense and the Discussion in present tense
  • Conclusions in present tense

Images, graphs and tables

  • For any document, the images, graphs and tables presented will be ordered consecutively with Arabic numbers and their titles will be placed using uppercase and lowercase characters without final period.
  • They must be self-explanatory and its content must not be replicated anywhere in the article.
  • The images will be submitted in independent files and inserted into the document after being mentioned in the text. Images must have a resolution of 300 pixels per inch.
  • The graphs will be presented only in two dimensions (2D) with their respective axes and legends, while the series can be differentiated with colors or black and white labels. The tables will be in editable format, with the first row in bold, without dividing lines between the content, and with their explanations at the end and centered.

Nomenclature and Units

The authors must follow the rules and conventions internationally accepted for the procedure with units of measurement like the International System of Units. When they use abbreviation, its meaning must be explained after its first mention.

Mathematical formulas

The mathematical equations will be sent as editable text and not as images. The small fractional numbers must be presented in a single line using “/” instead of a horizontal line, for example, X/Y. In principle, the variables must appear in italic. It is convenient to express the powers as exponents. All equations that are not inserted in the text must be numbered consecutively with their respective mention in the text.

Title

  • It should be concise and it must present the main content of the article.
  • 15 words maximum.
  • It should not be overloaded with abbreviations, symbols, formulas, unknown characters or the place of perform of the study.
  • Do not use phrases with double meaning or figurative sense.
  • Remove subtitles and all unspecific words.
  • It must be used style of writing of neutral approach. The final result cannot be suggested.

Abstract

  • It should be the abbreviated representation of the content of the document.
  • It must synthesize in no more than 200 words the main ideas included in each sections of the document, in a way to establish the problem, interest and objective of the research. It must describe, without details, the selected materials, the methods used, and summarize the main results, as well as enunciate the main conclusions.
  • It should not make reference to figures, tables or bibliographic references. It cannot include information which is not described in the article. It must enunciate the problematic situation before the objective.

Keywords 

  • They define and identify the main aspects treated in the article. They are used to locate the relevant information and to elaborate data bases and tables of contents. A maximum of five keywords will be written according to the relevance in order to reflect the content of the document. It is recommended to use the technical vocabulary of your profession as evidence of the scientific text.

Introduction

  • It should be brief. It must include the keywords and it must go from the general to the particular.
  • It must establish: the contextual framework in which the problem to solve is inserted; what is known and what it is unknown about the subject at issue; what the research will represent in the economic, social, technological and scientific fields. It must conclude with the objective of the article.
  • It is possible to use the three paragraphs format. In the first paragraph you will expose the contextualization and the backgrounds; in the second one, the reason to study the problem, and in the third one, the objective.

Materials and Methods

  • It must provide enough information to replicate the research. The unnecessary descriptions will be avoided.
  • It is necessary to mention, not the instruments used, but the materials that determined quantitatively or qualitatively the collection of the data.
  • Regarding the methods, it is necessary to consider three possible scenarios:
  • When the method is standard, the author must mention it and place the bibliographic reference.
  • When the method is not standard, but it has been used before, it is necessary to explain the reason to use it and to put the bibliographic reference where the method is described.
  • When the method has been created or adapted for the study, it is necessary to describe it completely or at least the transformed part.
  • This section can be organized into five areas including:
    • Environment: It declares where the study has been done.
    • Design: It describes the design of the experiment.
    • Population: It characterizes the sample and how its selection has been made.
    • Operations:  it describes techniques, methods, measurements and units, equipment and technology.
    • Statistical analysis: It mentions the programs and statistical methods used. The programs must be placed in bibliographic references.
  • The subtitles used to name the areas are freely selectable by the authors, examples: General conditions, Treatments, Measurements, Statistical Analysis.

Results and Discussion

  • Do not show data which are not clearly related to the objective of the research.
  • The research data are shown in figures and tables, which must be self-explanatory and be identified with titles, legends and source.
  • Tables provide precision and figures offer a clearer visual impact of the effects of the treatments and of the trends and interactions.
  • Indicating the meaning of the findings and how these findings are related to what has been known until then, are the central elements of the discussion.
  • In the discussion, the data of the figures and tables should not be repeated.
  • Make clear the principles, relationships and extrapolations that could derivate from the results. Exceptions should be highlighted.
  • Indicate how the results and their interpretations agree or disagree with other scientific researches.
  • Present the theoretical implications and the practical applications that the article could have. 

Conclusions

  • Highlight the main implications of the data obtained in the research and not make a statistical count of the values shown.
  • In all cases they must be justified by the qualitative assessment of the data presented in the body of the article.

Bibliographic References

For the conformation of this section the journal is ruled by the stipulated in APA norms (American Psychological Association) 6th edition. In order to homogenize and to facilitate the preparation of the citations from the text and references, it is recommended to use the CSL (Citation Style Language) of the APA. This software can be downloaded from https://www.zotero.org/styles/  . It is multiplatform: it works across multiple operating systems, it has UTF-8 character encoding so it can be used by any type of word processor, and has an XML programming language which enables interoperability between 38 open sourcereference managers of recognized international preference such as: Zotero, Papers, Mendeley, among others.

For the preparation of different kinds of documents, the author must use published and edited documents such as: articles of scientific journals, books, chapters of books, articles in conferences (congresses, symposiums, seminaries, workshops and events, of which the memories have been published at least), patents and norms, reports of international institutions (IOC, UNESCO, among others) that present the corresponding standardized identifier (ISBN, ISSN or DOI), maps and satellite images, legal resources, computer programs and thesis (when their results have not been published). Regardless of this range of possibilities, for the preparation of any kind of document, articles in scientific journals should be used, to a greater extent, because they are the central unit of science to issue its results.

Any other type of reference will not be allowed except for some statistical sites and digital data repositories such as the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI by its Spanish acronym), among others. The references of each article must have a high percentage of current affaires (last five years), except for the cases of the bibliographical reviews where the references must include a wide rank of time according to the intended type of study. Self-citations, both of the author himself and of the journal, should not exceed 20% of the reviewed literature.

Within the text, the author-year form is used for citations (e.g. Hernández, 2011) placing a comma “,” between the author's last name and the year of publication. For a citation of two authors, the last names must be placed separated by “&” followed by the year (e.g. Altieri & Funes, 2012). For citations of more than two authors, the form “et al." must be placed after the last name of the first author and followed by the year (e.g. Paneque et al., 2010a, b). If an author that has published more than one paper in the same year is separately cited within the text, the publications should be differentiated by placing the letters “a”, “b” as appropriate (e.g. Paneque et al., 2010a, b). In cases in where a corporate author is cited, the abbreviate form of the name must be used (e.g. HAMMOCK, 2016).

If the citation is composted of multiple sources (more than one paper), semicolon “;” must be used in order to separate each one (e.g. Ahmad et al., 2009; Hernandez, 2011; Paneque et al., 2010). The citations of multiple sources with the same authors, but different years of publication, will be placed using the last name of the main author, according to the previously mentioned ways, followed by the years and separated by comma “,” (e.g. Paneque et al., 2010, 2011).

It is mandatory to place the ISBN and the DOI to all documents with this kind of identifiers. Not all books, conference articles and reports have ISBN, but this element should be provided whenever it has been assigned. Likewise, not all scientific articles have DOI, but whenever it has been assigned it must appear. The purpose of this policy is to standardize the treatment of the metadata of each reference.

There are other mandatory filling elements that are characteristic of each kind of document, these are:

  • Articles in Scientific Journals: authors, title of the article, names of the journal, volume, number, page range of the article, ISSN, DOI, year of publication.
  • Books: authors, book title, place of publication, publisher, ISBN, total pages, year of publication.
  • Book chapters: authors, chapter title, book title, place of publication, publisher, ISBN, page range of the chapter, year of publication.
  • Standards, Patents and Legal Resources: natural or corporate authors, title, number or codification, place of publication, issuing institution, total pages, year of publication.
  • Scientific or Technical Reports: natural or corporate authors, report title, place of publication, issuing institution, ISBN, total pages, year of publication.
  • Articles in Conferences (congresses and workshops): authors, title, venue, responsible institution or publisher, ISBN, page range, year of publication.
  • Satelite Maps and Images: natural or corporative authors, title, place of publication, publisher, ISBN, scale, year of publication.
  • Computer Programs: natural or corporate authors, title, version, operating system, place, developer company, year.
  • Statistical Websites: natural or corporate authors, publication title, site title, publication date, complete electronic address, consultation date.
  • Thesis: authors, title, type of thesis, university or research institute where it was presented, place, total pages and year of presentation.

When the documents consulted are electronic, to the aforementioned elements, the complete electronic address and the date of consultation must be added.

The following examples are different types of references established by the APA norms 6th edition:

Articles in Scientific Journals

Falcón, A. B., Cabrera, J. C., Costales, D., Ramírez, M. A., Cabrera, G., Toledo, V., & Martínez, T. M. A. (2007). The effect of size and acetylation degree of chitosan derivatives on tobacco plant protection against Phytophthora parasitica nicotianae. World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology, 24(1), 103-112. DOI: 10.1007/s11274-007-9445-0

Articles in Conference (Congresses, Symposium, Seminaries, Workshops and Events)

Dobermann, A., Krauss, A., Isherwood, K., & Heffer, P. (2007). Nutrient use efficiency-measurement and management (pp. 1–28). Presented at the IFA International Workshop on Fertilizer Best Management Practices, Brussels, Belgium: International Fertilizer Industry Association. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20083154896.html;jsessionid=FDBB76ECCE587EA330911A0637D26371

Books

Paneque, P. V. M., Nature, N. J. M., Calderón, V. M., Borges, B. Y., Hernandez, G. T. C., & Caruncho, C. M. (2010). Manual de técnicas analíticas fertilizantes químicos (1st. ed). La Habana, Cuba: Ediciones INCA. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from  http://mst.ama.cu/578/  

When the book does not present authors, only editor or other responsibility role, it must be specified at the end of the list of names as follows:

Paneque, P. V. M., Calaña, N. J. M., Calderón, V. M., Borges, B. Y., Hernández, G. T. C., & Caruncho, C. M. (Eds.). (2011). Manual de técnicas analíticas para análisis de suelo, foliar, abonos orgánicos y fertilizantes químicos (1st ed.). La Habana, Cuba: Ediciones INCA. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from http://mst.ama.cu/578/

Section of a book

Rivera, R., Fernández, F., Fernández, K., Ruiz, L., Sánchez, C., & Riera, M. (2007). Advances in the Management of Effective Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis in Tropical Ecosystems. In C. Hamel & C. Plenchette (Eds.), Mycorrhizae in Crop Production (pp. 151–195). Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth Food & Agricultural Products Press. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from https://www.amazon.com/Mycorrhizae-Crop-Production-Science/dp/1560223073

Standards and Patents

Freepons, D. E. (1990, October 23). Plant growth regulators derived from chitin.US4964894 A. United States. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from  http://www.google.com.cu/patents/US4964894  

Computer Programs

Cervantes, B. R., & Alfonso, A. Y. (2016). Revista Latinoamericana de Recursos Naturales (Version 1.0) [Mulltiplataforma]. Obregón, México. Retrieved from http://www.zotero.org/styles/revista-latinoamericana-de-recursos-naturales

Reports

Ahmad, M., Rafique, M., Iqbal, N., Akram, W., & Aasi, M. R. (2009).Study of soil redistribution in cultivated fields using fallout cesium-137 at Fateh Jang, Attock, Pakistan (No. 41067805) (p. 30). Pakistan: Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from   http://inis.iaea.org/Search/search.aspx?orig_q=RN:41067805  

Thesis

Hernández, H. J. E. (2011). Propuesta de una arquitectura para el soporte de la planificación de la producción colaborativa en cadenas de suministro de tipo árbol (Tesis de Doctorado). Universidad Politécnica de Valéncia, España. Retrieved April 5th, 2016, from https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/14571

Maps

López, L. J. A., Vicente, B. J. M., Blasco, F., Mallén, D., & Saz, D. (2012). GR 11 Senda Pirenaica de mar a mar. 1:40 000, 46 Mapas de 31,5 x 25 cm, Zaragoza: Prames.

Web Pages

Altieri, M. A., & Funes, M. F. R. (2012, April 12). La paradoja de la agricultura cubana [Monthly Review]. Retrieved April 5, 2016, from http://www.nodo50.org/ceprid/spip.php?article1395&debut_articles_rubrique=45

In the section “References”, the documents metadata are usually incomplete, they do not appear with the established homogeneity of the bibliographical style of the journal. In the arbitration processes several errors are detected due to the omission of elements such as: date of publication, publishers and responsible institutions, standardized identifiers (ISBN, DOI), places of publication, pages and electronic addresses. On the other hand, the authors’ names are placed in a wrong way and grammar errors in the writing of the titles appear.

 

Review Articles

They consist of an exhaustive study of a problem and they propose solutions. It is a descriptive document, the result of a completed research where the outcomes of published or unpublished researches on a field in science or technology are analyzed, systematized and integrated, in order to show progress and development trends. It is characterized by a literature review of at least 50 references. Its structure will consist of the following parts:

  •  Title, authors, affiliations, abstract, keywords: the procedure will be the same as the scientific article.
  • Introduction
  • Development: subtitles, tables, figures and images to facilitate their writing and comprehension, can be used. The information will be gathered and its critical analysis supported by the use of bibliographic references will be made.
  •  Conclusions: This section will be included where the conclusions of the analysis carried out are reported.
  •  Bibliographic references: The procedure will be the same as in the scientific article.

 

 Short Articles

Short 4-page papers on the results of ongoing research or other contributions that deserve rapid dissemination. They do not need to be written by headings, although they must be structured as follows:

  •  Title, authors, affiliations, abstract: The procedure will be the same as in the scientific article.
  • Introduction, materials and methods, results and discussion: they will be written without of headings. The introduction will be brief and its purpose is to emphasize the objective of the article and its relation with the present scientific development. Following the introduction, the Materials and Methods emphasizing in the procedure, will be included. The Results and Discussion will then be presented clearly and precisely: it will contain a maximum of two tables or figures and no more than ten bibliographic citations will be used. The conclusions will be written at the end of the discussion. A great deal of emphasis is places on the objectives of this article which are the newness, originality and synthesis.
  • Bibliographic references: The procedure will be the same as in the scientific article.

 

 Letters to the Editor

Any comment or review of the journal, current affairs, events and courses, written by one or more authors, addressed to the editor of the journal. This kind of document contributes to the rapid exchange of ideas, opinions, basic experiences and scientific discoveries. This type of document informs the international scientific community about the results of theoretical or experimental researches, reached in important institutions in the Physical Culture and Sport and other related sciences. This section usually covers numbered pages of the journal, for which reason they are recorded in the bibliographic indexes and the can be used, if necessary, as a bibliographic reference.

The format is usually short, not more than 60 lines of text, four signatories, 10 bibliographic references (if necessary) and, in general, without tables or figures. Opinions must be supported by objective data, not the result of abstract reflection, and expressed with education and respect. The editorial committee has a great responsibility in the proper development and quality of this section, since the expert committee will seldom go to assess the suitability of these contributions, because the editorial process would be greatly delayed and its essential agility would be lost.

The structure includes title, full name of the recipient of the letter is and their position in the editorial committee, text, and full name of the person who writes the document together with his affiliation and his academic and research degree and his email address, it may or may not include bibliographic references.