ISSN 0121-4500
printed version

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Colciencias’ Articles Categories:
• Articles’ Eligibility Criteria
• Information of The Author
• Articles Selection Procedure
• Preparing the Document

The magazine Avances en Enfermería, of the Colombian National University, is published twice a year and receives articles in Portuguese and in English.

1.            Scientific and technological research articles. Document that presents in detail the original results of research projects. The structure generally used contains four important sections: introduction, methodology, results and conclusions.

2.            Reflection Article. Document that presents investigation results from the author’s analytic, interpretative or critical perspective on a specific subject, resorting to original sources.

3.            Review Article. Document that results from an investigation in which the results of published or unpublished investigations are analyzed, systematized and integrated on a field of science or technology in order to report on advancement and development trends. Its main characteristic is that it presents a careful bibliographic review of at least 50 references.

4.            Short Article. Brief document that presents preliminary or partial original results of scientific or technologic research, which in general require swift publication.

5.            Case Report. Document that presents the results of a study regarding a particular situation in order to show technical and methodological experiences considered in a specific case. It includes a commented systematic review of the literature on analogue cases.

6.            Subject Review. Document resulting from the critic review of the literature on a particular subject.

7.            Editorial. Document written by the editor, a member of the editorial committee or a guest researcher on orientations in the subject domain of the magazine.

8.            Translation. Translation of classic or current texts or transcripts of historic documents or of particular interest in the magazine’s publication domain.

9.            Reflection document not derived from investigation.

10.          Bibliographical outline.

11.          Others.

The material submitted to the editorial committee should meet the following criteria:

1             Clear and precise writing: The document’s wording should provide coherence on the contents and clarity to the reader.

2             Originality: The document must be original, this is to say, it must be produced directly by the author, it should not be an imitation of other documents.

3             Objectivity and Validity: The statements should be based on valid data and information.

4             Importance and contribution to knowledge: The document makes interesting contributions to the state of the art of the object of the study. The aforementioned criteria are fundamental when evaluating the documents’ eligibility.

Authors sending articles should forward them accompanied with a letter indicating their address, telephone number, fax number and electronic mail. If the article has several authors, each author’s contribution should be identified.

In case of investigation reports, the main researcher shall assume the responsibility over the integrity and reliability of the collected data. If the article was produced by a group, one or more researches should be designated to assume the responsibility on behalf of the group. In this case, the other members are not perceived as authors, and they shall be listed on the acknowledgement list. When submitting an article to the editorial committee, its author accepts that:

                In no case shall he receive any payment for the inclusion of the article in the publication.
                He cannot submit the same article to the consideration of other publications’ editorial committee until he obtains an answer in writing on the decision made regarding acceptance or rejection of his article.

The procedure to select articles for inclusion in Avances en Enfermería is as follows:

1             All the articles submitted to the magazine’s editorial committee shall be initially reviewed by the committee members to verify that they comply with the formal elements as per the instructions. Should they not fulfill those criteria, the document shall be excluded of the selection process and returned to the author, indicating the failures found in the first evaluation.

2             If it complies with the formal requirements, the document is then sent to two evaluators for its review: one of them shall be a professor at the university and the other from outside the university who should be experts on the topic addressed in the article. The author’s identity shall not be disclosed to the evaluators and the evaluators’ names shall not be disclosed to the author.

3             Based on the evaluators’ opinion, the committee shall decide if the article is published. In any case, the author shall receive a letter indicating the opinion of the evaluators, stating the decision made and, if accepted, the appropriate suggestions and changes shall be confirmed to the author before the article is published.

4             If the article is positively evaluated by one evaluator and negatively by the other, the article shall then be submitted to a third evaluator, and based on his/her opinion; the document’s inclusion in the magazine shall be decided.

5             Once the changes are received from the author, the editorial committee shall send the article to a style or document editor. Once the corresponding edition is completed, the article is returned to the author for his/her approval in a term no longer than 5 working days. The author should send authorization and state precisely the changes he/she does not accept, this authorization makes him responsible for all the statements made in his/ her article, including those submitted to changes by the document editor and authorized by the author.

6             If after 5 working days after reception of the document the author has not made any statement regarding the contents, the editorial committee shall assume that he/she accepts the editorial changes that were made.

Before submitting a document, please verify if it satisfies the following conditions:

               The document is typed in Times New Roman font size 12, double spacing, and using 2.5 cm margins for all four sides of the format.

                The document pages are numbered.

                There is a presentation of the author (s) consisting of: complete name and surnames, academic education, current position and institution(s) he/they is/are part of, as well as electronic mail address and telephone numbers to contact, city and country.

                The article has an abstract in Spanish of no more than 250 words which should capture the article’s objective, key points and conclusions are captured.

                The abstract should not include statements that are not recorded in the document.
                For the case of research publications, the abstract should include study objectives, methods, results, discussion and conclusions.

                The article includes from 3 to 5 describers or key words in Spanish and English, of the DeCS (BIREME) which allow unmistaken identification of the document and facilitates its search and location. The describers may be obtained from the following URL:http://decs.bvs.br/E/homepagee.htm

                The article does not use any abbreviations or acronyms neither in the title nor in the abstract and their use in the text is limited. Before using an abbreviation or acronym for the first time, the corresponding name is indicated and its meaning in parenthesis). Example: Sistema General de Seguridad Social en Salud (SGSSS).

                The document does not mention any commercial names of drugs, equipment or material, unless it is strictly necessary.

                For the case of sponsored research, the article has a final section in which the sponsor is mentioned.

                There are printed and magnetic media copies recorded in .doc format.

                There is one printed and one magnetic media copy recorded in .TIF or .JPG format of the illustrations, pictures and/or graphs used to illustrate the text.

                The length shall be of minimum 10 and maximum 25 pages (up to 5.000 words)

                Charts, graphics and pictures have a title or explanatory text not exceeding 15 words.

                The foot notes are only used to explain the main text further.

                The author should use bibliographic references following Vancouver Guidelines, which are numbered in consecutive order in the text in parenthesis.

                References are expressed as follows:

Zamora Garzón G. La especialización tecnológica: consideraciones sobre su naturaleza y requerimientos. Educación Superior y Desarrollo: Órgano de difusión del ICFES. Jul/ Sep 1984; 3(3):10-20.

When referring to a web page, keep in mind: the topic, main site or author and the specific address or URL. Example: Cardiac Function. American College of Cardiology. http://www.acc.org/login/index.taf

Bibliographic References: They are placed at the end of the article and not as foot notes, numbered in correspondence with their order of appearance and quoted as follows:

(1) García Márquez G. Cien años de soledad. Bogotá: Oveja Negra; 1984, 347 p.

(2) Velásquez OC, Isaza I. Manual para la elaboración de citas bibliográficas de impresos y audiovisuales. Medellín: Escuela Interamericana de Bibliotecología; 1975, 47 p.

When there is a reference that contains more than two authors, it is quoted as follows:

Restrepo M, Gómez JJ, Aristizábal J. Manual de documentación: las técnicas para la investigación y redacción. Bogotá: Andina; 1996, pp. 126-136.

When the reference comes from a periodical publication:

Benner P. From novice to expert. American Journal of Nursing. Marzo 1982; 82(03):407.

Questions about the management of bibliographic references may be solved following the Vancouver guidelines (“Examples of bibliographic references”) in the following URL: http://www.fisterra.com/recursos_web/ mbe/vancouver.asp.

No additional references should be included, only the references.

For further information and forwarding of proposals, please send to:
Comité Editorial, revista Avances en Enfermería Facultad de Enfermería, edificio 101, oficina 802A, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Carrera 30 No. 45-03 Teléfono: 316 5000, ext. 17021, Bogotá, Colombia. Dirección electrónica: revavenf_febog@unal.edu.co