Authorship Policy

Authorship policy

In the interest of transparency, accountability, and the proper recognition of scholarly contributions, Terra Latinoamericana requires an Author Contributions Statement for all published primary research articles. The journal supports the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), available at https://casrai.org/credit/. The Editorial Committee of Terra Latinoamericana requires the corresponding author to disclose, at the time of manuscript submission, the specific contributions made by each author according to the following CRediT roles:

 

Role	Definition
Conceptualization	Ideas; formulation or development of research goals and aims.
Data Curation	Management activities to annotate, clean, and maintain research data (including software code when necessary) for initial use and future reuse.
Formal Analysis	Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
Funding Acquisition	Acquisition of financial support for the project leading to the publication.
Investigation	Conducting the research process, including experiments and data/evidence collection.
Methodology	Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
Project Administration	Management and coordination responsibilities for planning and execution of the research activity.
Resources	Provision of study materials, reagents, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analytical tools.
Software	Programming, software development, implementation of computer code and supporting algorithms, and testing existing code components.
Supervision	Oversight and leadership responsibility for planning and execution of the research activity, including mentorship outside the core research team.
Validation	Verification of the reproducibility and reliability of research results, experiments, or other outputs.
Visualization	Preparation, creation, and presentation of published work, specifically data visualization and presentation.
Writing – Original Draft	Preparation, creation, and presentation of the initial manuscript draft, including substantive translation.
Writing – Review & Editing	Critical review, commentary, revision, and editing of the manuscript before and after publication.

Diversity of authorship. Terra Latinoamericana encourages the participation of authors whose geographical affiliations and publication records demonstrate active engagement within the academic communities associated with the journal's scope.

 

Author affiliation information. Publications in Terra Latinoamericana must accurately identify all contributing authors. Manuscripts must include the full names, institutional affiliations, and country or region of each author. Authors are also encouraged to provide their ORCID identifier or institutional profile links that clearly establish their identity and affiliation.

 

Number of authors. Although there is no universally accepted rule regarding the maximum number of authors per scientific publication, Terra Latinoamericana establishes the following recommendations to promote responsible authorship, transparency, and accountability.

 

Research articles. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of six (6) authors per manuscript. When the number of authors exceeds six, the Section Editor or Editor-in-Chief will determine whether the proposed authorship is justified according to the content and complexity of the manuscript. Factors considered include multidisciplinary research, complex statistical analyses, long-term experiments, studies involving multiple variables, and highly specialized fields such as genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and related disciplines. In all cases, the contribution of each author must be clearly justified.

 

Research notes. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of four (4) authors. This recommendation is not intended to discourage multidisciplinary collaboration; however, Research Notes communicate preliminary, methodological, or narrowly focused findings. Consequently, authorship should reflect direct participation in the design, execution, and analysis of the study while avoiding the inclusion of contributors with only peripheral involvement. This policy promotes traceability of intellectual contributions and accountability, consistent with the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, 2023) regarding authorship and collective responsibility (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/).

Review articles. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of six (6) authors. When this number is exceeded, the Associate/Section Editor or Editor-in-Chief will evaluate whether the complexity of the review justifies additional authors. Relevant considerations include multidisciplinary topics, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and large international collaborations. Limiting authorship in review articles promotes responsible authorship practices and facilitates verification of contributions, in accordance with COPE principles (https://publicationethics.org/guidance-and-tools).

 

Scientific essays. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of six (6) authors. Requests to exceed this number must be justified based on the multidisciplinary nature of the topic, conceptual contributions, interpretative analyses, critical integration of knowledge, and other relevant scholarly considerations.

 

Book reviews. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of four (4) authors. When more than four authors are proposed, the Section Editor or Editor-in-Chief will determine whether the nature of the contribution justifies additional authorship. Limiting authorship in this article type is consistent with its scope and purpose and promotes transparency regarding intellectual contributions.

 

Biographical profiles. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of three (3) authors. Given the descriptive and reflective nature of this type of contribution, a limited number of authors help preserve narrative coherence, conceptual unity, and individual accountability.

 

Letters to the editor. Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of two (2) authors. Letters to the Editor generally communicate comments, critiques, or reflections on recently published work and do not typically involve extensive collaborative research activities. Limiting authorship facilitates accountability and clear attribution of ideas.

 

Corresponding authors. Although no universal rule exists regarding the number of corresponding authors, Terra Latinoamericana recommends a maximum of two (2) corresponding authors only for Research Articles. The inclusion of multiple corresponding authors must be fully justified and should demonstrate equivalent and complementary contributions in critical areas of the study, such as large collaborative projects or co-supervised graduate research. For all other article types, Terra Latinoamericana recommends a single corresponding author. The designation of a single corresponding author promotes efficient scientific communication, ensures administrative and ethical accountability, facilitates editorial management and version control, enhances transparency in conflict-of-interest declarations, and supports the authenticity of authorship.

 

Continuos publication policy

Beginning in January 2021, Terra Latinoamericana adopted a Continuous Publication model.

Continuous Publication replaces the traditional practice of grouping articles into issues released at fixed intervals and instead allows each accepted article to be published individually online as soon as it has successfully completed the editorial, peer-review, production, and publication processes. This model enables the scientific community to access new research findings as rapidly as possible.

Under the Continuous Publication system, publication periodicity is no longer organized around discrete issues. Instead, the publication year serves as the primary organizational unit, corresponding to the annual volume of the journal.

All scholarly articles published during a given year are incorporated into the corresponding annual volume and are organized according to the thematic scope and scientific areas covered by Terra Latinoamericana.

To ensure the timely dissemination of scientific knowledge, the journal performs editorial production cycles monthly throughout the year. Consequently, newly accepted articles are published continuously as they complete the editorial workflow, resulting in the regular incorporation of new content into the current annual volume.

Through the adoption of Continuous Publication, Terra Latinoamericana seeks to accelerate scientific communication, reduce publication times, increase the visibility of research outputs, and provide immediate access to high-quality scientific information in accordance with international standards of scholarly publishing and Open Science.