Publishing Guidelines

General Guidelines for Authors

MENTOR Revista de Investigación Educativa y Deportiva is a multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal that publishes research in the areas of Education and Educational Sciences; Physical Activity, Exercise and Sport; and Health Sciences.

The journal is primarily intended for researchers, academics, practitioners, and other members of the scientific community interested in the areas covered by its focus and scope.

MENTOR publishes three regular issues per year, in January, May, and September, and may publish special issues according to its editorial planning.

Manuscripts that successfully pass the initial editorial screening undergo external double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers.

Types of Contributions

MENTOR accepts the following types of contributions:

  • Original Research Articles: report original findings from quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, or other appropriate research designs.
  • Review Articles: critically analyze, integrate, and synthesize relevant scientific literature through a clearly described search and selection methodology.
  • Theoretical Essays: develop an academic, critical, and evidence-based argument supported by relevant scientific literature.

Manuscripts must clearly fall within one or more of the areas established in MENTOR’s focus and scope. Manuscripts outside the journal’s scope may be rejected during the initial editorial screening without being sent for peer review.

Originality and Exclusivity

Manuscripts must be original and unpublished and must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal or publishing outlet.

Authors are responsible for the originality, integrity, and accuracy of their work and must comply with MENTOR’s policies on research ethics, authorship, competing interests, funding, artificial intelligence, and other applicable editorial policies.

As part of the submission process, authors must complete and sign the Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

Manuscript Submission

Manuscripts must be submitted exclusively through MENTOR’s editorial platform.

The main manuscript file must be submitted in Microsoft Word format and fully anonymized to ensure double-blind peer review.

Author information—including full names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, ORCID identifiers, and other required information—must be entered in the platform metadata and must not appear in the anonymized manuscript file.

Acknowledgements, funding information, and other elements that could reveal the authors’ identities must also be removed from the manuscript during peer review. These may be restored, where appropriate, after acceptance.

Manuscripts may be submitted in Spanish or English.

Manuscript Structure

The title must be provided in Spanish and English and should be approximately no more than 15 words.

The abstract must be provided in Spanish and English, with a maximum length of 200 words, and should accurately reflect the purpose, methodology or approach, main findings or arguments, and conclusions of the work, according to the type of contribution.

Each manuscript must include three to five keywords in Spanish and English.

Original Research Articles

Original research articles should be structured, according to the nature of the research, as follows:

  • Introduction
  • Methodology
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • References

Where appropriate, study limitations and main implications should also be reported.

Review Articles

Review articles should include, according to the type of review:

  • Introduction
  • Search, selection, and analysis methodology
  • Development or synthesis of findings
  • Discussion
  • Conclusions
  • References

The methodology should allow readers to understand how the sources were identified, selected, and analyzed.

Theoretical Essays

Theoretical essays should include:

  • Introduction
  • Argumentative development
  • Conclusions
  • References

The internal organization may include sections and subsections appropriate to the argumentative structure of the work.

Format and Length

The recommended manuscript length is approximately 4,000 to 7,000 words, including references.

Manuscripts should use:

  • Letter-size pages.
  • 2.54 cm margins.
  • Times New Roman, 12-point font.
  • Justified text.
  • Single line spacing.
  • 6-point spacing after paragraphs.
  • 1.27 cm first-line indentation.
  • No page numbering.

Bold and italics may be used where required by the manuscript structure or APA 7 guidelines. Underlining should not be used except when it forms part of a hyperlink.

Tables and figures must be relevant, consecutively numbered, titled, cited in the text, and prepared in accordance with APA 7.

Supplementary materials may be submitted when relevant to the understanding, transparency, or reproducibility of the research.

Authorship and Contributions

All individuals identified as authors must have made a substantial contribution to the work and assume responsibility for the published content.

For multi-authored works, contributions must be declared using the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy, selecting the roles that correspond to each author’s actual contribution to the research. These contributions must be recorded in the Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

The CRediT roles used by MENTOR are:

  • Conceptualization
  • Data curation
  • Formal analysis
  • Funding acquisition
  • Investigation
  • Methodology
  • Project administration
  • Resources
  • Software
  • Supervision
  • Validation
  • Visualization
  • Writing – original draft
  • Writing – review and editing

Individuals must not be listed as authors solely because of their position, seniority, institutional relationship, or administrative support.

Funding

Authors must disclose any sources of funding that supported the research or preparation of the manuscript.

When no external funding was received, this must be explicitly stated in the Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

Competing Interests

Authors must disclose any financial, institutional, professional, personal, or other competing interest that could influence, or reasonably be perceived as influencing, the conduct or presentation of the research.

Where no competing interests exist, this must be explicitly stated in the Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

Research Ethics

Research must comply with the ethical standards applicable to its nature and discipline.

Where applicable, authors must report ethics committee approval, informed consent, confidentiality and data protection procedures, and measures taken to protect human participants or animals.

The editorial team may request additional documentation where necessary to verify compliance with the ethical requirements declared by the authors.

Relevant ethical information must also be recorded in the Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Substantive use of generative artificial intelligence tools in manuscript preparation must be disclosed in accordance with MENTOR’s Artificial Intelligence Policy.

Artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors or cited as sources of scientific information. Authors remain responsible for verifying the accuracy, validity, and integrity of all content included in the manuscript.

Where applicable, the use of generative artificial intelligence must also be disclosed in the Declaration of Originality, Authorship, and Responsibility.

Citations and References

Citations and references must follow the American Psychological Association, Seventh Edition (APA 7).

Short direct quotations of fewer than 40 words must be incorporated into the text within quotation marks.

Direct quotations of 40 words or more must be presented as block quotations in accordance with APA 7.

Every source included in the reference list must be cited in the text, and every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list.

References must be arranged alphabetically and formatted using a hanging indent.

DOIs must be included when available, preferably in the following format:

https://doi.org/xxxxx

URLs should be included when appropriate for the type of source cited.

Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy and functionality of all DOI and URL information included in the reference list.

Authors may optionally use Crossref Simple Text Query to identify DOI information available for the references included in their manuscripts.

MENTOR does not require authors to cite publications from specific databases. References must be selected according to their relevance, quality, and contribution to the subject of the manuscript.

Editorial Process

Receipt of a manuscript does not imply acceptance for publication.

Manuscripts undergo an initial editorial screening to verify their correspondence with MENTOR’s focus and scope, compliance with the Author Guidelines, structure, anonymization, ethical requirements, and other editorial conditions.

Manuscripts that successfully pass this stage undergo external double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers.

The final editorial decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief or the responsible editor designated by MENTOR, taking into account the review reports, the authors’ responses, and compliance with the journal’s editorial and ethical policies.

Accepted articles are scheduled for publication according to MENTOR’s editorial planning.