Guidelines for Authors

Authors must use the Finisterra`s template.

 

TYPES OF MANUSCRIPTS

Finisterra publishes research or review articles, book reviews, author’s comments, notes, errata, and obituaries.

Manuscripts must be submitted in digital format, using a recent version of Microsoft Word, and must be fully anonymised.

 

COVER PAGE

All manuscripts must be accompanied by a Cover Page. The Cover Page must be submitted as a separate file at the time of manuscript submission.

On the Cover Page, the corresponding author must:

  • List all authors of the manuscript, in the order in which they should appear in the publication;

  • Carefully check all names and surnames, as they should appear in the final publication;

  • Provide the full institutional affiliation of each author (in the following order: Department/Research Centre, Faculty, University), as well as the city, country, and institutional email address;

  • Clearly identify the corresponding author and provide their full institutional postal address;

  • Include Acknowledgements, where applicable, including references to research projects and sources of funding;

  • Provide the hyperlinked ORCID identifiers of all authors;

  • Specify each author’s contributions, in the case of multi-authored manuscripts, following the CRediT taxonomy.

 

MANUSCRIPT LENGTH

Research or review articles must not exceed 35,000 characters including spaces, excluding titles, abstracts, keywords, references, figures, and tables.

Book reviews must not exceed 15,000 characters including spaces. This manuscript type does not require an abstract.

Author’s comments, notes, errata, and obituaries must not exceed 10,000 characters including spaces. These types do not require abstracts either.

 

MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING

All manuscripts must be formatted according to the TEMPLATE provided by Finisterra. If the manuscript is not submitted using the template, it will not proceed to peer review.

The main body of the text must use the Minion Pro font, size 10.5, with no line spacing.

Finisterra accepts manuscripts written in Portuguese, English, or Spanish.

 

TITLES / ABSTRACTS / KEYWORDS

Titles, abstracts, and keywords (maximum of 5) must be presented in three languages, in the following order:

  • articles in Portuguese: Portuguese, English, Spanish;

  • articles in English: English, Portuguese, Spanish;

  • articles in Spanish: Spanish, Portuguese, English.

Abstracts must not exceed 1,500 characters including spaces and should not contain references or citations.

 

HIGHLIGHTS

Manuscript highlights are mandatory. These consist of 3 to 5 key points that emphasise the relevance and innovation of the study’s methods and/or results. Each point must not exceed 85 characters including spaces. Highlights must be written in the same language as the manuscript.

 

FIGURES

The term “figure” includes maps, charts, drawings, photographs, and infographics.

Each figure must have a title in two languages: the original language of the manuscript (Portuguese/Spanish) and English; or, if the manuscript is in English, in English and Portuguese. The title should be concise and express the content of the figure.

A source must be indicated only if it refers to work by authors other than those of the manuscript.

All figures must be cited in the body of the text using “figure” if within the sentence or the abbreviation “fig.” in parentheses [e.g., (fig. 1)].

In addition to being included in the text, authors must also submit all figures as individual files, in colour and greyscale, not exceeding 5 MB each (30 MB in total), in .jpeg, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, or .png formats, with a resolution no lower than 300 dpi. Each file must be named with the first author’s surname, figure number, and file extension (e.g., Durão_fig.2.jpeg).

Finisterra is printed in greyscale; colour figures will only appear in the online version. If authors wish to have colour figures printed, they will bear the cost of colour printing.

CARTOGRAPHIC STANDARDS

You may consult Finisterra’s Cartographic Standards and view examples of figures.

You can also access the Finisterra north arrow symbol.

Maps not created by the authors must include the source after the caption.

GRAPHS

All graphs must be provided in an editable format within the Word manuscript file or submitted separately as a supplementary Excel file (or another format).

Graphs must indicate the units of measurement on their axes, avoid internal lines, and omit outer borders (boxes).

TABLES

Tables should use horizontal lines only, with no outer vertical borders, although internal vertical lines are allowed. Tables should be simple and preferably fit on a single page, avoiding long sentences, lengthy numbers, and excessive decimal places.

All tables must be referred to in the body of the text, using the word “table” in the sentence or between parentheses [e.g., (table I)], followed by a Roman numeral sequence.

All tables must be in an editable format within the Word manuscript file (regardless of authorship).

Each table must have a title in two languages: the original language of the manuscript (Portuguese/Spanish) and English, or, if the manuscript is in English, in English and Portuguese. The title should be concise and clearly describe the content of the table. A source must be indicated only if it refers to work by authors other than those of the manuscript.

 

REFERENCES

The formatting of bibliographic references must comply with all requirements of APA Style, 7th edition (see APA Guidelines 7th ed.).

The reference list should include only the works cited in the manuscript and must appear at the end of the text under the section “References”.

References must be listed in alphabetical order. If multiple works by the same author are cited, they should be ordered chronologically. If more than one work by the same author from the same year is cited, letters should be added to the year (e.g., 2020a, 2020b, etc.).

All titles not originally in English must be translated into English and placed in square brackets following the original title, except for legal documents.

Finisterra encourages the use of reference management software (e.g., Mendeley, EndNote). However, authors must ensure that their references include all required elements and comply with APA Style, 7th edition.

 

ENDNOTES

Essential endnotes (maximum of 10) must be numbered using Roman numerals and placed at the end of the manuscript under the section “Endnotes”.

Endnotes consisting solely of bibliographic references are not allowed.

 

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

For multi-authored research articles, a brief paragraph outlining each author’s individual contributions must be included, organised by author and using the following terms (fill in only those applicable to the submitted work; see the CRediT taxonomy at https://casrai.org/credit/ for definitions of each term):

Name Author 1: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

Name Author 2: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft preparation, Writing – review and editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.