Statement on ethics, malpractice, and the use of artificial intelligence

Letras Históricas is committed to promoting ethical conduct as a scientific journal and takes as a reference the principles published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (https://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct). The journal assumes an ethical commitment to neutrality regarding the contents of articles submitted to the editorial office, without prejudice based on religious, political, ethnic, gender-related, or any other ideology or position that may generate controversy or dispute.

The editorial process of Letras Históricas is governed by good faith, academic integrity, confidentiality, editorial transparency, and the responsibility of all persons involved. The Editorial Board trusts the honesty of authors and the good academic practice and impartiality of reviewers. Authors, in turn, must trust the integrity of the editorial team and of those participating in peer review. The Editorial Board will ensure that editors, reviewers, and authors respect ethical principles throughout all phases of the editorial process.

For authors

Articles submitted to Letras Históricas must be original and unpublished. Authors are required to declare that the manuscript proposed for publication is original and has not been previously or simultaneously submitted to another journal, book, peer-reviewed editorial repository, or any other academic publication venue for evaluation or publication. This declaration will be required before the manuscript proceeds to peer review.
Similarity screening. Letras Históricas uses Turnitin to generate similarity reports, identify textual matches, detect possible improper use of sources, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant publication, and possible content assisted by artificial intelligence before peer review. The similarity report will not be considered, by itself, automatic proof of plagiarism, but rather an input for the editorial assessment of the manuscript. Turnitin licences are provided by the Universidad de Guadalajara.
Copyright and access. Authors retain copyright and economic rights over their works. By publishing in Letras Históricas, authors grant the journal the right of first publication and a non-exclusive authorisation to publish, reproduce, edit, distribute, and publicly communicate their works under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), unless otherwise expressly indicated. Publishing in the journal is free of charge, and all individual articles and complete issues are available in open access.
Authors must refrain from multiple, simultaneous, or repeated submission of articles to different publications or publishers. Such conduct is contrary to academic integrity and good editorial practice.
The journal avoids the concentration of authorship in consecutive issues. As a general editorial criterion, two years is the minimum period before the same author may publish again in Letras Históricas, unless the Editorial Board determines a justified exception on academic, thematic, or editorial grounds.
Authors must respect the original sources consulted in their article. Citations, notes, and bibliographic references must be indicated correctly, clearly, and completely.
Errors in published articles. If authors identify a relevant error or inaccuracy in their published work, they must inform the Editorial Board and provide the necessary information for the corresponding correction, clarification, or publication of an erratum.
Authors undertake to review the most current and relevant academic literature on the subject of their research.
Authors must sign the authorship declaration according to their level of responsibility and involvement in the article. Co-authors must decide the order in which their names will appear and notify it clearly. Letras Históricas does not allow simulated co-authorship, ghost authorship, honorary authorship, or pseudonyms, but recognises the support work of research assistants when appropriate. Authors guarantee the inclusion of those who have made a significant scientific and intellectual contribution to the conceptualisation, planning, research, analysis, interpretation of results, or writing of the work. If necessary, the editorial team will be provided with the information needed to identify the contribution of each author. Changes in co-authorship after the peer-review process has concluded will be subject to editorial review and may result in disqualification of the manuscript for publication.
Conflict of interest and disclosure. All authors are required to declare explicitly whether there are any personal, academic, institutional, employment-related, financial, or other conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results obtained or the interpretations proposed. They must also indicate any source of funding from research projects, universities, public institutions, private organisations, or civil society.
Authors must address, in due time and form, the observations made by the Editor-in-Chief, the editorial team, and the reviewers.
Use of artificial intelligence tools. Authors must explicitly declare the use of generative or assisted artificial intelligence tools at any stage of manuscript preparation, including writing, translation, copyediting, bibliographic search, data analysis, generation of images, tables, code, or methodological support. The declaration must indicate the tool used, the purpose of its use, and the scope of its intervention. The use of these tools may be admitted only as technical, linguistic, exploratory, or instrumental support, provided that it does not replace intellectual authorship, academic analysis, interpretation of results, argumentation, or responsibility for the originality and accuracy of the manuscript. Artificial intelligence tools may not be listed as authors or co-authors, since they cannot assume ethical, legal, or academic responsibility for published content. Authors are fully responsible for verifying the accuracy of the information, citations, references, data, translations, arguments, and interpretations included in the manuscript, even when artificial intelligence tools have been used. The inclusion of false information, non-existent citations, invented references, unverifiable data, or content generated without critical review will be considered a breach of academic integrity. Failure to declare the use of artificial intelligence, incomplete declaration, or improper use of these tools may lead to requests for clarification, suspension of the editorial process, rejection of the manuscript, publication of corrections, expressions of concern, or retraction, depending on the stage of the process and the severity of the case.

For reviewers

Contribution to the editorial decision. Reviewers undertake to provide a critical, rigorous, and constructive review in accordance with the journal’s standards of scientific quality.
Double-blind peer review must be conducted impartially. The review report must not contain personal judgements, offensive expressions, or comments unrelated to the academic evaluation of the manuscript.
Reviewers must inform the editorial team if they identify that substantial parts of the work have already been published, are under review in another journal, or present relevant similarities with other texts. They must also accurately indicate bibliographic references to fundamental works possibly omitted by the authors.
Reviewers must promptly notify the editorial team if they identify that the work under review is similar to another work already published or under review by another journal.
Institutional independence of evaluation. Reviewers must not evaluate manuscripts whose authors belong to the same institution of affiliation, nor manuscripts with respect to which they maintain personal, academic, institutional, employment-related, financial, or recent collaborative ties that may compromise, or appear to compromise, the impartiality of the review. When any of these conditions exists, they must immediately inform the editorial team and refrain from participating in the evaluation process.
Conflict of interest. When a reviewer has any personal, academic, institutional, employment-related, or financial interest that may affect their objectivity, they must refrain from participating in the editorial process.
Anonymity. Reviewers will not know the identity of the authors, except for information that may eventually be inferred from the manuscript itself or from prior public versions. They will also not know the identity of the other reviewers participating in the evaluation.
Once the evaluation process has concluded, reviewers must refrain from disclosing the content of the reviewed manuscript to third parties. They must also avoid retaining, sharing, citing, reproducing, or using the reviewed work before its publication.
Respect for agreed deadlines. Reviewers are responsible for notifying the editorial team if there is any inconvenience preventing them from delivering the review within the agreed timeframe.
Use of artificial intelligence tools in evaluation. During peer review, reviewers must not upload manuscripts, substantial fragments, data, images, tables, appendices, or unpublished materials to external artificial intelligence tools without express authorisation from the editorial team, in order to protect the confidentiality of the evaluation process. If linguistic or technical support tools are used, reviewers must declare this to the editorial team and retain full responsibility for the content of the review report. The use of artificial intelligence tools does not replace academic judgement, critical reading, or the ethical responsibility of the reviewer.

For the editorial team

Honesty. The editorial team will guarantee transparency in the processes of evaluation, editing, and publication of each issue.
Confidentiality. The editorial team will maintain anonymity between authors and reviewers throughout the double-blind peer-review process.
Response to enquiries. Queries and requests for clarification from authors, reviewers, or any person interested in Letras Históricas will be addressed promptly through the journal’s institutional communication channels.
Rectifications. Corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, or retractions will be published when appropriate, according to the severity of the case and good editorial practices.
Dissemination. The published issue will be disseminated through repositories, databases, academic networks, and institutional communication channels.
Publication process. The editorial team will select reviewers according to academic criteria, taking into account their specialisation, trajectory, and thematic relevance to each manuscript.
Institutional diversity. No more than 20% of the articles published in each issue of Letras Históricas may be written by authors affiliated with the Universidad de Guadalajara. The journal will seek to avoid the concentration of authorship in a single institution, department, academic group, or editorial body, in order to strengthen the plurality, independence, and openness of its contents.
Conflict of interest and disclosure. Members of the editorial team undertake not to use, in their own research, contents from articles submitted for publication without the written consent of the authors.
Respect for deadlines. The editorial team is responsible for complying with the time limits for reviews and publication of accepted works, in order to ensure the timely dissemination of scientific results. The journal will seek to comply with its published timeframes: a maximum of four weeks for the preliminary assessment or rejection of the manuscript for peer review from its receipt in the review platform, and a maximum of twelve weeks from the beginning of the double-blind review process.
Editorial use of artificial intelligence. The editorial team will not delegate substantive decisions on acceptance, rejection, academic evaluation, definitive detection of plagiarism, or resolution of editorial conflicts to artificial intelligence tools. Any automated tool will be used only as technical support, management support, similarity review, or editorial assistance, always maintaining human responsibility for editorial decisions. Before assigning manuscripts for review, all submissions may be checked with Turnitin, whose licences are provided by the Universidad de Guadalajara, to review textual similarity, possible undeclared matches, improper use of sources, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant publication, or possible content assisted by artificial intelligence.

On malpractice

The following are considered editorial malpractice:

When any member of the Editorial Board, Advisory Board, editorial team, or reviewer receives from any author or external person any gift, economic or in kind, for an article under review to be approved.
When authors, reviewers, or members of the journal do not fulfil their professional responsibilities, affecting the interests of the journal, authors, or the academic community.
When the Editor-in-Chief rejects a publication proposal without presenting necessary and convincing arguments, or because of personal, political, institutional, or other conflicts with the author.
When authors, reviewers, or members of the journal fail to conduct themselves with due respect toward the other party in cases of conflict, clarification, or complaint.
When the Editorial Board, editorial team, or a reviewer fails to observe the ethical principle of confidentiality regarding authors or manuscripts under evaluation.
When the Editorial Board, editorial team, or a reviewer provides third parties with information about the journal, authors, documents under evaluation, or any other text without the corresponding permissions, and this causes economic, material, academic, or any other harm to the journal or to the persons involved.
When the Editor-in-Chief does not properly follow up on complaints submitted by authors. Likewise, when the journal’s Direction or Editorial Board does not carry out the appropriate procedure, does so only partially, or does not proceed in resolving a conflict or complaint submitted in due time.
When an author attempts to give any gift, economic or in kind, to any member of the journal’s Direction, Editorial Board, or editorial team so that the resolution of a conflict may be in their favour.
When an author does not address the observations made by the Editor-in-Chief, the editorial team, or reviewers, which may lead to the suspension of the article in the editorial process.
When an author does not sign the authorship declaration or the corresponding licence and insists on publication of the article.
When an author does not properly cite parts of the text whose source belongs to another author.
When an author does not provide the authorisations requested by the editorial team.
When an author includes more bibliographic references in the final list than those cited in the work, and the case is not classified as indirect plagiarism.
When an author omits declaring the use of artificial intelligence tools, declares it incompletely, or uses these tools to replace intellectual authorship, fabricate information, invent citations, generate non-existent references, alter data, manipulate images, or present unverified content as their own.
When an author commits plagiarism in any of the following forms:

Direct plagiarism: when a text or work is transcribed, copied, or translated without authorisation from the original author or without specifying the original source; when credit is not given to the original author; when minimal changes are made to a quotation without indicating that it is a quotation; or when synonyms are used in a quotation and the result is presented as original text.
Indirect plagiarism: when the citation system is not used correctly; when quotation marks are opened in a direct quotation but it is not specified where they close; when the quotation continues after opening and closing quotation marks without clear delimitation; when a paraphrase is used in a way that is almost identical to the source; when credit is not given to the author when using paraphrase; when the final list of references includes bibliography not cited in the work; or when a work is cited but the reference is not included in the final list.
Reference plagiarism: when a cited reference does not correspond to its author; when reference data are omitted; or when only the author is mentioned but not the referenced work, or vice versa.
Self-plagiarism or text recycling: when previously published own material is reused without indicating the reference to the previous work; when an already published article is submitted as new; or when an author cites their own previously published works recurrently in the same text without academic justification.

Procedure for the resolution of conflicts and infringements

Identification of malpractice. Any person, whether reader, author, reviewer, or member of the journal, may detect unethical behaviour and bring it to the attention of the Editor-in-Chief at any time. Such conduct is not limited to the cases established in the previous section. The person informing the Editorial Board of the conduct in question must provide the necessary evidence to verify such behaviour, in order to initiate the investigation process. All allegations will be considered with the respect and seriousness they require, with follow-up until the end of the process and resolution of the case.
Procedure and investigation. The Editorial Assistance will be the first instance for addressing conflicts in cases of minor infringement, after consultation with the Editor-in-Chief and the journal’s Direction. When the infringement is of greater seriousness or gravity, the case will be referred to the Editor-in-Chief and the journal’s Direction. The Editorial Assistance must compile a file with the necessary evidence regarding the case and submit it to the Editor-in-Chief and the Direction for study.
Only the information revealed in the evidence will be taken into account. The Editor-in-Chief and the Direction will hear the arguments of the affected party, whether in person or in writing by any means of communication. The Editor-in-Chief and the Direction will hear the parties in conflict, guaranteeing each party the right to express their grounds and arguments, while maintaining at all times the required objectivity and impartiality.
The Direction will establish a specific period to analyse the case and issue a final resolution. All resolutions will be made in writing, with copies sent to the parties involved and to the journal archive. If the infringement is committed by a member of the Editorial Board, the investigation and resolution will correspond to the journal’s Direction.
Items 10 to 13 of the previous section are considered minor infringements. Minor infringements also include those forms of misconduct that do not put at risk the integrity of the journal, its contents, the rights of authors, or any of its members, and whose origin lies in omissions or negligence by the offending party. The person concerned will have the right to present arguments in writing clarifying the circumstances under which the infringement occurred.
Items 1 to 9 and 14 of the previous section, as well as plagiarism in any of the forms mentioned in item 15, are considered serious infringements. Infringements that violate decorum and respect for persons, express offences, violate the rights of any member of the community, harm the interests of the journal or of the Universidad de Guadalajara, involve negative publicity toward the journal, coercion to prevent collaborators from participating in it, verbal or physical aggression against members of the journal or collaborators, or conduct that may constitute criminal offences will also be considered serious.

Resolutions issued for conflict resolution

Written notice to the offending person regarding the act committed, clarifying the omission or misunderstanding that allows the necessary corrections to be made.
Letter addressed to the offending person, warning them about malpractice and alerting them to the consequences of future unethical behaviour.
Written notice published in the journal, detailing the observed malpractice.
Letter addressed to the head of the department or institution to which the offending person is affiliated, detailing the malpractice and requesting that action be taken in accordance with institutional regulations.
Formal cancellation of the offending person’s contributions for a determined period.
Official retraction of an already published work.
If necessary, notification to university authorities so that the appropriate measures may be taken regarding the facts derived from the malpractice.