Submissions

Login or Register to make a submission.

Author Guidelines

Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Sophia follows the article classification established by Minciencias and international databases. Priority is given to research and innovation articles, which must be original and unpublished.

1. Types of Articles

  • Scientific and technological research article: presents original results arising from research processes. Its structure must allow the research problem or objective, methodology, results, discussion and conclusions to be clearly identified. Different structures may be accepted where justified by the nature of the object of study, the discipline or the methodological approach adopted.
  • Reflection article: a work derived from research that develops an analytical, interpretive or critical perspective on a specific problem. It must clearly identify the problem or question addressed, the thesis or position defended, the corpus or sources used, the analytical or argumentative strategy and the original contribution of the work.
  • Review article: a study that critically analyses, systematises and integrates the available literature on a clearly delimited research problem. Where applicable to the type of review undertaken, it must state the sources or databases consulted, the search strategy, the selection criteria, the period analysed and the analytical procedure. The body of references must be sufficient, current and relevant to the problem under study.
  • Essay: an argumentative text that develops an original thesis on an educational problem, with an explicit theoretical basis and critical engagement with the literature. It undergoes double-blind peer review.
  • Book review: a critical analysis of a recently published scholarly work in the field of education, presenting its content, assessing its contributions and limitations, and situating it within the debates of the field.
  • Editorial: an invited text, at the invitation of the Editor-in-Chief. It is not peer reviewed.

2. Manuscript Structure

Articles must be submitted in Microsoft Word format, with a maximum length of 20 pages. Empirical research articles will preferably follow an Introduction, Methodology, Results, Discussion and Conclusions (IMRaD) structure, without prejudice to adaptations justified by the methodological approach adopted:

  • Title: Maximum 15 words (Spanish and English).
  • Abstract: Maximum 250 words. Must be analytical (objectives, methodology, results, and conclusions).
  • Keywords: Maximum 5 descriptors, preferably from the UNESCO Thesaurus, in alphabetical order.
  • Introduction: Problem nature and objectives. Should not exceed 1/4 of the total length.
  • Methodology (research articles): design or approach, participants or corpus, instruments and techniques, analytical procedure and ethical considerations where applicable.
  • Development (reflection articles): ordered presentation of the argument, analysis of the sources and justification of the thesis.
  • Review method (review articles): sources, search strategy, selection, criteria and procedure for synthesis or analysis according to the type of review undertaken.
  • Conclusions: Mandatory, clear, and written in affirmative language.
  • References: must be sufficient, relevant and current in relation to the problem addressed, and must correspond fully to the sources cited in the manuscript. Primary sources and specialised scientific literature are preferred where appropriate.

3. Style and Citation Standards (APA 7)

The journal strictly follows APA 7th Edition standards:

  • Textual Citations: Under 40 words remain within the paragraph in quotation marks. Over 40 words are placed in a standalone block with a 1.27 cm indent.
  • Format: Units of measurement must follow the International System of Units. Avoid creating custom acronyms.
  • Graphics: Images in TIFF format (minimum 150 dpi) submitted as separate files.

4. Ethical Commitment and Intellectual Property

Manuscripts are screened using similarity detection tools as part of the originality check. Results are examined by the editorial team and do not by themselves constitute automatic evidence of plagiarism. The assessment takes into account the nature and origin of the matches, including correctly attributed quotations, the authors’ own previous work, theses, repositories and other sources. Submission implies the manuscript is unpublished and requires a signed Copyright Transfer Form in PDF.

Bibliographic Reference Examples (APA 7)

Below are the basic formats for the most common sources. All references must appear in alphabetical order at the end of the manuscript:

Source Type Format / Example
Print Book Author, A. (Year). Book title in italics. Publisher.
Journal Article (with DOI) Author, A. (Year). Article title. Journal Name, Vol(Issue), pp-pp. https://doi.org/xx.xxx
Legal Documents Issuing Body (Year). Title of the law or standard. Official Gazette No. XXX.
Website Author, A. or Site Name. (Date). Content title. URL

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
  • Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
  • The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
  • If the submission is sent to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions must be followed to ensure an anonymous review: To ensure the integrity of the blind review process carried out by experts for this journal, every effort must be made to prevent the identities of both authors and reviewers from being known to each other. This involves authors, editors, and reviewers (who upload documents as part of their review) verifying that the following steps have been taken for the text and file properties: The authors of the document have removed their names from the text, using “Author” and the year in references and footnotes instead of the author’s name, article title, etc. For Microsoft Office documents, the author’s identity must also be removed from the file properties (see “File” in Word) by clicking the following options, starting from the main menu in Microsoft: File > Save As > Tools (or Options on a Mac) > Security > Remove personal information from file properties on save > Save.
  • If you have already published a manuscript in Sophia, you may only submit a new text once 12 months have passed since the publication of your previous article.

Research Articles

An article presenting original results arising from research processes. Its structure must allow the research problem or objective, methodology, results, discussion and conclusions to be clearly identified. Different structures are accepted where justified by the nature of the object of study, the discipline or the methodological approach adopted.

Reflection Articles

A work derived from research that develops an analytical, interpretive or critical perspective on a specific problem. It must clearly identify the problem or question addressed, the thesis or position defended, the corpus or sources used, the analytical or argumentative strategy and the original contribution of the work.

Review Articles

A study that critically analyses, systematises and integrates the available literature on a clearly delimited research problem. Where applicable to the type of review undertaken, it must state the sources or databases consulted, the search strategy, the selection criteria, the period analysed and the analytical procedure. The body of references must be sufficient, current and relevant to the problem under study.

Book Reviews

A critical analysis of a recently published scholarly work in the field of education: it presents its content, assesses its contributions and limitations, and situates it within the debates of the field.

Essay

An argumentative text that develops an original thesis on an educational problem, with an explicit theoretical basis and critical engagement with the literature. It undergoes double-blind peer review, like articles.

Copyright Notice

Articles published in Sophia are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Authors retain the copyright of their work without restrictions.

Licensing history: articles in volume 21 (2025) were published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence, as stated in their PDFs. Since volume 22 (2026), all articles are published under CC BY 4.0.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.