ISSN 2078-0362
versión impresa

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and Editorial Policies
• Manuscript form and preparation
• Sending of manuscripts
• Subscription

Punto Cero is an academic and scientific magazine written by the professors and students of the Social Communication Sciences Program at San Pablo Catholic University of Bolivia. It specifically broaches subjects of communication and culture, and those of social sciences in general.

Punto Cero attempts to contribute pluralistically to the propagation of scientific knowledge generated locally, nationally and internationally.

At a time of model and paradigm crises for communications studies, Punto Cero takes on a careful stance to confront the uncertainty generated by both, the crisis itself and a number of tendencies which, clung to apocalyptic structures or to easy tendencies that become fads, such as justifying the receptor’s activities, hold the research development back in social communication.

In this sense, Punto Cero is an warning for preparing all the communication resources both in the message production perspective and scientific research, precisely in order to arise from uncertainty, to work accepting the challenges of continued thought that, even if the crisis of illustrated reason is confirmed, the inexistence of poverty, and the low standards of living of the majority of the population of our nations is not.  The fact, that the communications media are entities inserted in the market rules and that, all the same, people continue to appropriate themselves to the massive offers and, opposing their references, with millennial cultural matrixes, is not unconfirmed either. The Latin-American audience, in spite of so much adversity, continues to resist and allow the appearance of rich and ambitious displays that often escape the dominant elite’s control and are shown as symbolic or material conquests.

All interested parties may send papers that present research results, case studies, argumentative essays, thought provoking or subject review articles, which deal with general communication topics and / or their relationships with culture, politics, education and development.
 
Requirements for article presentation:

• Articles must have a maximum length of 25,000 and a minimum of 15,000 characters (without spaces), Times New Roman font, size 12, with 1.5 interlinear space, on letter size paper.
• On the first page, the paper must include:
• Title
• Name and last name of the author or authors
• A brief biographical description of the author or authors including the following information and punctuation: Nationality, obtained academic degrees.  Job positions currently involved in and place(s) of employment.  
• Summary in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, which must not exceed 10 (ten) lines.
• The main body of the paper must be written with no special margins or indentations. Capital letters should only be used for proper names, title, paragraph and sentence beginnings.
• Titles and subtitles should be structured in a hierarchical manner, according to the decimal system nomenclature (1., 1.1., 1.1.1, etc.) as needed.
• Direct quotations or paraphrased text should be included within the same paragraph, according to the following format: (LAST NAME year: page #), for example (BELTRÁN 2002: 56). In the case of a paraphrased text, the abbreviation Cf. (compare) must be added in front of the last name, for example (Cf. KAPLUN 1982: 2).
• It is highly recommended to verify that all quote sources be later referenced in the bibliography, making sure that there are no differences in year, place, name, etc.
• All explanation notes must be done through a reference mark at the end of the paper (and not as a footnote), just before the bibliography, under the title “Notes”.
• The bibliography with its respective references of the texts utilized must be included at the end of the paper, after the “Notes”, in alphabetical order and according to the following format and punctuation:  

Books: LAST NAME, Name (year). Title. (Translated by...  –if applicable-) Edition number (when it is not the first). Place of publication, Editorial house. 
Magazines: LAST NAME, Name (year). Title of the article. Name of the magazine. Volume (edition number): page numbers, Place of publication.
Electronic Documents: LAST NAME, Name (year). Title of the paper or article. <URL>. (Date accessed).
Institutional Web Page: Title of the web page. Editor.        < URL>. (Date accessed).
Personal Web Page: Title of the web page (it is usually the person’s name), followed by the words Home page. <URL>. (Date accessed).

• If the paper includes photographs, charts and/or graphs, they must be sent separately, with a clear indication of their location within the text, according to the following format: Illustration, Chart or Graph No, Title (e.g. Chart No 1 Comparison on communication notions). At the bottom of the illustration, chart or graph a caption should indicate the source (e.g. SOURCE: Own production from data in OROZCO 2003: 43).
• Please note that the digitizing of photographs or illustrations to be included in the paper must be done with a resolution of 300 dpi at the time of scanning, in JPG, GIF, or TIF graphic file formats.
• The articles published so far in the magazine have been written in Spanish. Although this is the preferred language, articles written in Portuguese and English are also accepted.  
• The sent article must preferably be previously unpublished. Otherwise, the name and date of the publication, editor address and a letter authorizing its reproduction must be included.

Collaborations and/or consultations may be sent in electronic format to:
Revista PUNTO CERO: puntocero@ucbcba.edu.bo

(Please indicate in SUBJECT: Punto Cero number )
The author(s) must identify themselves by providing the following information at the time of the sending of the manuscripts:

• Complete name  
• E-mail address
• Regular mail address  
• Nationality

Punto Cero is a magazine which has been created with the purpose of exchanging with other scientific publications. Currently, there is exchange with over 20 international magazines. The printed version is distributed free of charge to all the libraries of the Bolivian universities that have a Social Communications Program. 

To request Exchange with Punto Cero, simply write to gomezal@ucbcba.edu.bo.