About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Esboços: histories in global contexts is a triannual e-journal edited by the Graduate Program in History of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Brazil), whose main objective is to contribute to the debate on Global History. Through the publication of articles, interviews and reviews, in Portuguese, Spanish, and English languages, the journal seeks to provide support for the debate around transcultural approaches, multiple integrations, connected, transnational, comparative and maritime histories, world-system, micro- and macro-scale processes, among other approaches of Global History.

Editorial and Peer Review Process

This journal operates a double-blind review process in which reviewers are not informed who the authors of the paper are, and the authors do not know who the reviewers are. All submissions are initially screened by the Editor-in-Chief and one member of the Executive Board. Articles that are accepted are then reviewed by at least two anonymous peer reviewers. If there is no agreement between the reviewers, a third referee is provided. The submissions are evaluated using the journal's review forms, available in the UFSC Institutional Repository. Book reviews and interviews are evaluated by a qualified reviewer to assess the significance and quality of the submission. The quality and relevance of articles translated into Portuguese are assessed by one of the Executive Editors. Normally, the complete review process takes between 1-4 months. The assigned Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of submissions. An author can appeal an editor's decision to reject a manuscript for publication through the journal's Executive Board.

1. Editor-in-Chief and Executive Editor Review

Every submission is reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief in terms of adequacy to the journal guidelines. If manuscript does not meet the submission requirements, then the manuscript will be returned to the author for corrections and resubmission. If the manuscript meets the submission requirements, the Editor-in-Chief  will send this manuscript to the Section Editor. Manuscripts that fail to meet a minimum threshold for quality and originality or do not fit with the journal's focus and scope will be rejected by the assigned editor without being sent out to reviewers.

2. External Review

If the article is found with sufficient quality worth further consideration, the assigned editor will assign this manuscript to 2-3 external reviewers for blind peer review. Book reviews or interviews passing through this initial editorial scrutiny are then typically sent out to one referee. In the three issues of 2020, the percentage of reviewers external to the publishing institution was 95.7%.

When appropriate, one of the reviewers will be a member of the Advisory Board. The reviewers are given four weeks to submit a report in which they evaluate the manuscript and provide recommendations to accept, reject, or ask for revision. They are asked to provide constructive feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript and suggestions for further improvement. If there is no agreement between the reviewers, a third referee is consulted.

Once the reviews are submitted, the Editor weighs the readers' reports and decides whether to accept, reject, or ask for revision. In 2020, the article rejection rate was 54%. For authors asked to revise and resubmit, the Editor provides comments on how to strengthen the manuscript based on the two reviewers' reports as well as his/her own observations. Authors are normally given one to two months from the date of the first editorial decision to prepare a revision.

3. Assigned Editor Review

The manuscript that has been revised and resubmitted by the author will be reviewed by the assigned Editor. The assigned Editor will review the revised manuscript and the reviewers' reports and will also have access to the manuscript originally submitted. The assigned Editor will assess the overall quality of the revised manuscript and how well the author has addressed the issues raised by the reviewers. The decision to accept or reject a manuscript for publication is the responsibility of the editor, not the reviewer. The accepted manuscript will move to the publication stage. The Editor-in-Chief will communicate with the author and assist in preparation for publication.

4. Estimated publication date

The time between receipt of the final manuscript, containing all the modifications required for acceptance, and publication is estimated between one or two issues (i.e., four to eight months).

Appealing of a Rejection

An author can appeal an editor's decision to reject a manuscript for publication through the journal's Executive Board. To appeal a rejection, the author must send the following items to the journal:

• A letter that explains why the author has chosen to appeal the rejection. The letter should address specific reasons provided by the editor for the rejection.
• The editor’s letter of rejection.
• The reviewers’ comments.
• Any additional correspondence.

These items must may be sent as e-mail attachments to the Editor-in-Chief within fifteen days after the author has received the rejection notice.

The Executive Board gathers comments on the materials from the Editorial Board and rules on the appeal. In writing, the Executive Board then informs the author, editor, and other board members of the decision. The decision of the Executive Board is final. The appeals process takes approximately 3 months from when the Executive Board receives the appeal materials.

Special Issue Proposal

Every year, Esboços: histories in global contexts accepts proposals for special issues. Guest Editors who wish to submit a Special Issue should email a proposal to the journal’s Editors for Special Issues. Please, check the News to know all the deadlines. 

What is a special issue?

Special issues draw together a range of contributions on a given theme and allow for more in-depth treatment of a topic than is normally possible within a single journal issue.

Typically a special issue consists of 5-8 original and unpublished articles as well as an introduction written by Guest Editors, providing a rationale that dialogues with current or historical researches in the field and making an overview of the papers. If more papers are accepted through the review process than can be accommodated in a Special Issue, they will be considered for publication in later regular issues of the journal.

Preparing a Proposal for a Special Issue

The proposal should contain the following information:

• The names, positions, and institutions of the proposed Guest Editors. In general there should be 2 to 3 Guest Editors of Special Issues;
• A short proposed title for the Special Issue, no longer than 10 words, in English.
• A brief description of the rationale behind the proposal, in English, setting out the importance of the theme to global studies;
• A list of proposed paper titles, at least 4, with the authors' names, together with an indication of their commitment to contribute, their institutional affiliations, and abstracts of their contributions.
• Details on the origin of the proposal, e.g., a workshop, conference, research project etc.

Esboços: histories in global contexts strongly encourages the submission of Special Issue proposals with a gender-balanced pool of contributors.

Original and unpublished articles may be submitted in Portuguese, English, or Spanish, although a significant portion of the issue is expected to be published in English. For this reason, Guest Editors are highly encouraged to make arrangements for translating materials into English.

The Executive Board will consider the pool of Special Issue submissions received by the established deadline. Their selection will be based upon which proposal in their judgement has the most potential in terms of relevance and originality to Global History debates.

Guest Editors for Special Issues receive a timetable for submission on acceptance of their proposal by the Executive Board.

The Responsibilities of Guest Editors

It is the responsibility of the Guest Editors to prepare a Call for Papers, invite contributors, assist them in submitting papers via the online submission system, indicate reviewers and write a short overview to introduce the Special Issue. Guest Editors will not receive any monetary compensation for the work associated with publishing the Special Issue.

It is the responsibility of the Guest Editors to deliver the proposed articles to the journal within the agreed schedule. The Guest Editors should also ensure that authors adhere to submission and revision deadlines. This is important to avoid delays caused by late submissions or curtailment of the Special Issue due to lack of submissions. The entire process, from articles from the first date of submission to the date of acceptance of the last manuscript by the Journal Editors should take no more than 2 months.

The peer review process for Special Issue articles

It is the responsibility of the Editors for Special Issues and not the Guest Editors to decide on the acceptance (or otherwise) of submissions, either pre- or post-peer review, as well as communicating final decisions to Authors. The Editors for Special Issues are also responsible for managing the peer review process, though Guest Editors should feel free to recommend potential reviewers. Editors for Special Issues are not obliged to accept any submission, even if invited, and should not be afraid to reject any submissions that are substandard. Finally, it is important to note that Guest Editors will not automatically have access to reviewer comments.

The double-blind peer review process for Special Issue submissions is identical to that of regular submissions to the Journal. When submitting your paper, please remember to select the correct manuscript type.

Publication Frequency

Past Publication Frequency: Biannually (1994–2018)
Current Publication Frequency: Triannually (2019-)

The issue for the months of January to April are published in January. The issue for the months of May to August are published in May. The issue for the months of September to December are published in September. 

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors are not charged any article submission processing charges (APC) or other publication fees.

Ethical conduct

Publishers

Editorial practice and the editor's relationship with authors and reviewers are covered by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct for Journal Editors. All editorial decisions are based on the relevance, originality, clarity and validity of the study to the scope of the journal.

Reviewers

The review process evaluates the merit of the submission, and it is not influenced, positively or negatively, by personal or financial reasons nor by intellectual prejudices. Submissions details and reviews information are confidential. The reviewer must identify any potential conflict of interest in the submission review. When faced with some irregularity, such as plagiarim, fabrication and falsification of results, or redundant publication the editor must be informed.

Authors

In line with the guidelines of various agencies in the area of ​​History, the journal Esboços: histories in global contexts considers that there is no co-authorship of supervisors in works resulting from the research of their students.

The indication of authorship in a scientific work is due only to those who:

• contribute intellectually, directly and substantially to the conception of the research/article (attainment, analysis or interpretation of research data);
• participate in the construction of preliminary versions or critical review of the content of the article;
• approve the final version of the article to be published;
• take responsibility for authorship in order to ensure accuracy and integrity of the article.

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the acknowledgments.

All authors must be indicated in the online submission form and in the Author's Notes. In case of any doubts regarding authorship, the editors reserve the right to request more information from everyone involved in the submission. No authorship modification is allowed after acceptance of the manuscript.

The author must present the declaration of conflict of interest, when applicable.

Retraction and expression of concern

The editor has a duty to act on the suspected or alleged misconduct identified. This investigation extends to both submissions and published articles. This journal follows the COPE flowcharts to determine facts and actions required in the resolution of cases. It also adopts Scielo's retraction and expression of concern procedures, which are based on guidelines from international committees specializing in research ethics.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is the unethical act of copying someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source. Self-plagiarism occurs when an author utilizes large part of his/her own previously published work without using appropriate references. The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and that the work and/or words of others has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Submission and Publication Fees

Esboços: histories in global contexts does not charge authors a submission fee or an Article Processing Charges (APC).

Internal rules

Internal rules 2018 – Esboços: histories in global contexts (in Portuguese only)

Sponsors

We thank the Graduate Program in History of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) for its support and funding.

• UFSC Graduate Program in History
• National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) - 2008-2009

Journal History

Esboços, a publication of the Graduate Program in History (PPGH) of the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), was founded in 1994 as a journal focused on debating the PPGH student's research results. With the success of the editorial proposal, the journal started accepting contributions from national and international researchers and was managed by the PPGH faculty. Following the world trend of scientific journals, since 2009, Esboços has been published only in electronic format, on the OJS platform, and hosted in the UFSC Journal Portal. At that time, the journal's entire collection was digitized and made freely available to reading and download. From 2019, the journal increased its publication frequency to triannually and changed its focus and scope to Global History, following a change in the PPGH's concentration area. Since then, it has adopted a new subtitle and is now called Esboços: histories in global contexts.