Submissions

Author Guidelines

Latin American Data in Science (LADS) is concerned with all areas of knowledge, publishing exclusively data papers. 

Introduction

The speed of the evaluation and publication process of your paper depends on the correct submission of all the information in your data paper. Please read these instructions carefully and review your article based on them before submitting it.

LADS exclusively publishes articles that describe research data (data papers) that you have made available in a public repository and/or that is included directly in the submitted article. The author must ensure that the data are original and owned by you, and may be used by others without restriction or cost. Submissions must contain robust datasets, and databases with few variables and/or samples and that consist predominantly of secondary data will not be accepted. 

LADS accepts submissions written in Portuguese, English or Spanish. The submission of articles should use the template provided by the journal and it is recommended that articles be between 1500 and 3000 words in length. Articles with more than 3,000 words will have a differential publication rate.  

All paper submissions to the journal must be done through the official website. Papers submitted through other means will not be accepted. Papers written by more than one author are understood to be ordered according to the contribution of each author. 

Submission of originals to the journal implies authorization from the authors for publication, without payment of copyright. Inclusion of authors after submission will not be accepted, so it is important that authors check and fill in the submission metadata correctly when sending the article to LADS.

IMPORTANT.- Have the following information from all authors at the time of submission: First and Last Name; contact email; country of origin; ORCID; Institution.

Submit your Data Paper

1. All authors should use the template provided by LADS when preparing their manuscript. Download the template;
2. Check the guidelines and standardizations;
3. Submit your document.

Checklist

All articles must contain the following sections:

• Authors and author affiliations;
• A list of articles that have already been published with the data or part of it (when applicable);
• A direct link to the deposited data (when applicable);
• Title;
• Abstract and 5 keywords;
• 3-5 points explaining why the data are valuable to other researchers;
• A full description of the experimental design and materials and methods;
• A complete description of all datasets made available in the data paper;
• References.

Important Notes

• Maximum of 20 pages, but 5 to 10 pages is recommended;
• Font Calibri size 12, line spacing 1.5, except for legends, where single spacing should be used;
• Figures, tables and charts should appear together with the text, editable, in font 10, both for the content and for the title (which should come right above the graphical elements) and font (which should come right below the graphical element). Figures may be colored;
• Formulas and mathematical equations should be presented in the normal sequence of the text. Use the tool available in Word, or one that is fully compatible with the .docx format;
• Only use capital letters in the first letter of the title and where necessary, as in the case of names of species, localities, among others;
• Abstract  together with keywords;
• The submitted file should not contain the identification of the authors;
• Whenever possible, please submit information about your social networks and those of the other authors (if applicable) so that we can tag you in posts about your article;
• Send up to three (3) images of your own, with good resolution, and that represent your work to be used in posts on our website and/or social networks.

As part of the submission process, authors are required to verify the compliance of the submission with respect to all items listed below. Submissions that do not conform to the guidelines will be returned to the authors.

• The contribution is original and unpublished, and is not under consideration for publication by another journal;
• The submission file is in Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, or RTF format;
• DOI for references were provided when possible;
• All the information in the references was made available for their formatting according to the journal's standard;
• The text has 1.5 spacing; It uses 12-point Calibri font; 
• Figures and tables are inserted in the text (in their respective places), not at the end of the document as appendices;
• Authorship identifications were eliminated from the text and file properties;
• The person responsible for the submission will register all the authors and must inform: First and Last Name; contact email; country of origin; ORCID; Institution. This information must be informed at the time of submission. It is not enough for this information to be available in the manuscript, it must be entered one by one at the time of submission.
• The publication will only take place after all authors have their ORCIDs included and approved. This has been one of the reasons for delays in approved articles and should be a special care when submitting.

Submission

The entire submission process is done through the LADS system (Access Here). The registration in the system and subsequent access through login and password are mandatory for paper submission as well as to follow the ongoing editorial process.  

The submission will have four steps:

1. Start

Language of Submission

You must inform the language of submission: The options are Portuguese, English or Spanish

Categories

Select the category that your data paper best fits in. Although the form allows you to select more than one, we ask that you select only one category. 

Manuscript Submission Requirements

You must check all topics, confirming revisions and LADS guidelines

Comments for the editor

This is optional information. Make comments to the editor only when deemed indispensable.

Accept copyright statement

You must check this box to confirm your acceptance of the copyright and privacy terms.

2. Uploading the manuscript

In this second step you will upload all the files that make up your submission. Usually there will be two files, your data paper prepared with our template and your dataset. The second file will not be uploaded unless it is already stored in an external repository. Valid repositories are those that conform to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) principles.

However here you can also upload files such as:

• Other supplementary materials;
• Images representative of your work (make sure they are all of your authorship or that you have ownership of them). These images will be used to promote your article on our site and/or social networks;
• Among others.

3. Adding metadata

Read these comments carefully, they are extremely important for the success and speed of approval of your data paper. This topic is the point where authors make the most mistakes, go back to these comments whenever you have any doubts.

Prefix

If your title begins with words like "The"; "A"; ... you must insert them here.

Title

The title must be entered here, excluding only the prefix, as mentioned in the previous topic. Leave the Subtitle field blank. The title should have only the first letter capitalized and those that are grammatically obligatory, such as names. It is the authors' responsibility to inform the title as it will be published, including words in italics when necessary.

Abstract

The abstract must have a maximum of 300 words, in a single paragraph and without citations. 

List of co-authors

We strongly suggest that co-authors register on LADS and fill out all the fields available in the profile. However, the person responsible for the submission must register ALL other authors at the time of data paper submission. The required information is below, with the mandatory information marked with an asterisk. 

- First name*

Spanish names, compound and hyphenated last names should be placed in the last name

Examples:

First name: Alexander     Last name: Sánchez Gamboa

Name: Jonas                      Last Name: Coimbra Filho

First Name: Fábio             Last Name: Amaral-Furtado

Names that have "da", "de", "dos" accompany the NAME

Examples:

Name: Antônio José dos   Last Name: Santos

First Name: Ana Maria de Last Name: Souza

Do not fill in the field "How would you prefer to be addressed...".

- Contact*

Email of co-author

- Country of origin*

Select the co-author's country

- Complementary Data

Lattes URL

Insert the co-author's Lattes link, if available

ORCID iD*

It is mandatory that all authors have ORCID (https://orcid.org/signin). The person responsible for the submission must click on the item "Send e-mail to request contributor's ORCID authorization", located at the bottom of the page for the co-author to authorize its inclusion.

IMPORTANT.- This has been a recurring error and the reason for delays in the publication of approved articles. We emphasize that the article will only be published after ALL authors have their ORCIDs reported and released to the journal.

- Institution/Affiliation

Inform the co-author's institution. The name of the institution must be written out in full and without the addition of Department, Laboratory, etc.

- Summary of the biography

It is difficult for the corresponding author to fill in this field, which is not mandatory, so we recommend that all co-authors register on LADS. We intend to publish the biography of the authors along with the published papers. Only the last education and the last position should be filled in. Do not copy and paste the abstract from Lattes.

- Role of the collaborator

You must always define it as Author. If the person you are submitting is not the main contact, you must mark the field "Main contact for editorial correspondence." of the correspondence co-author.

Submission metadata

Metadata is important for indexers to find your article and make it visible in web searches. The better the metadata, the more visibility your article will have. Some of the fields below are optionals, but we suggest that you fill them all out. Please follow these guidelines exactly to reduce the time it takes for LADS editorial staff to review and adjust your article.

Coverage Information

This topic refers to the geographical and chronological location of the article. Separate by semicolons, see examples:

• Brazil; 2020
• South America; 19th century
• Brazil; Contemporary
• Europe; Prehistoric

Keywords

Fill in each term and press <ENTER>. Only the first letter should be capitalized. Use the same ones that were cited in the manuscript.

Funding Agencies

Here you can cite funding agencies and process numbers.

References

Copy and paste the references of your article, with all the links and DOIs. Check carefully if all DOIs are included, this information is essential and may result in the refusal of the data paper for them to be complemented.

4. Confirmation

Here your submission will be finalized. Just click on "Finalize Submission" to forward your article to LADS.