Accepted Manuscript Formatting

Accepted papers should be revised to align with the journal's formatting requirements. Please follow these guidelines when revising your paper:

Title

The manuscript title must be provided in both the manuscript's original language and an additional language. Please underline a maximum of three words in the title. These words will be highlighted in the PDF version of the paper.

Abstract

Provide the abstract in the manuscript's main language and in the same additional language used for the title. Avoid citations and undefined acronyms or abbreviations.

Keywords

Include 3 to 5 keywords, separated by periods, in the manuscript's original language. The same keywords should be provided in an additional language (matching the title's language).

Lay Summary

The lay summary should briefly explain the article's topic, objectives and, when applicable, its main findings or conclusions using non-technical language, making it accessible to non-experts. The lay summary should not exceed 200 words. Do not use citations, acronyms, or abbreviations. Refer to our Lay Summary Guidelines for more information.

Section Headings

Number all section headings except for the Introduction. Use a logical hierarchy for subsections (for example, 2, 2.1, 2.2).

Illustrations (Tables, Graphs, Figures, Boxes)

The title of each illustration should begin with the illustration's name (in bold), numbered sequentially (e.g., Table 1., Table 2., Graph 1., Graph 2.), and placed below the illustration. When referencing previously published illustrations, provide the source. All illustrations should be inserted within the text, immediately following the paragraph of citation.

Accessibility

All submissions must comply with WCAG 2.2 (Level AA) accessibility standards to ensure full usability for readers with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive disabilities.

Text and Language

Specify the main language of the manuscript and mark passages in other languages so that screen readers can recognize them. Do not rely solely on color, bold, or underlining to convey meaning; always pair color with text or symbols. Maintain adequate color contrast (minimum ratio 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for headings).

Figures, Graphs, and Illustrations

Each visual element must include both a caption and alternative text (ALT). Captions must appear below the illustration and begin with its type and number (e.g., Figure 1., Table 2.). Provide concise ALT text (one or two sentences) describing what the figure represents and its main message (for example, “Line chart showing a 10–25% increase in accuracy between 2020 and 2024, peaking in 2023”). If the visual contains complex information, supply a longer description immediately after the caption or in supplementary materials. Use color-blind–safe palettes and ensure that information is not conveyed by color alone; add patterns, labels, or markers as needed. Whenever possible, submit vector graphics (SVG, PDF, or EPS) for diagrams and charts, and 300 dpi PNG or TIFF for images.

Tables

Do not include tables as images. Use editable table structures with clear column and row headers. Each table must have a caption and ALT text. The structure should allow logical reading order for screen readers.

Equations and Symbols

Insert equations as editable text (MathML, LaTeX, or Word’s equation editor), not as images. If an image is unavoidable, provide ALT text that expresses the equation verbally.

Audio and Video

Provide accurate captions for all spoken content, and full transcripts including relevant sounds. Supply audio descriptions whenever visual information is essential for comprehension.

Examples of ALT and Descriptive Captions

ALT (Figure 2): Map of northeastern Brazil showing twelve municipalities with bars indicating numbers of speakers per municipality (5–120).

Long description (Figure 2): The map includes twelve bars; values range from five to one hundred twenty speakers, with higher concentrations in municipalities along the coastal axis.

Citations

Citations must follow ABNT NBR 10520:2023 and consistently use the author–date system. For indirect citations (paraphrases), provide the author’s surname and year in parentheses (Swerts, 1997). When the author’s name is integrated into the sentence, provide only the year in parentheses (for example, “According to Swerts (1997)...”).

For direct quotations, provide the page number or another locator for the quoted passage, when available, after the year and preceded by the appropriate abbreviation (for example, “...” (Silva, 2000, p. 95)). Direct quotations of up to three lines must be enclosed in double quotation marks. Direct quotations longer than three lines must be presented as a block quotation, indented 4 cm from the left margin, single-spaced, and without quotation marks.

To distinguish works by the same author or authors published in the same year, add lowercase letters immediately after the year, without a space, according to the order adopted in the reference list (Ferreira, 2007a; Ferreira, 2007b).

For parenthetical citations of works with two or three authors, separate surnames with semicolons (Huettig; Rommers; Meyer, 2011). When the authors’ names are integrated into the sentence, use the normal coordination conventions of the manuscript’s language (for example, “Huettig, Rommers, and Meyer (2011)”). For works with four or more authors, follow the journal’s editorial convention: cite only the first author followed by et al. in italics (Almeida et al., 2013). In the reference list, include all authors.

When several different works are cited together within parentheses, separate the citations with semicolons. Listing them in alphabetical order is recommended (Fonseca, 1997; Paiva, 1997; Silva, 1997).

References

The reference list must follow ABNT NBR 6023:2025. When a DOI is available, present it as a canonical URL preceded by “DOI:” (for example, DOI: https://doi.org/...). For documents consulted online, also provide the electronic address preceded by “Available at:” and the access date preceded by “Accessed on:”.

Examples of References According to ABNT NBR 6023:2025

BRAYNER, A. R. A.; MEDEIROS, C. B. Incorporação do tempo em SGBD orientado a objetos. In: SIMPÓSIO BRASILEIRO DE BANCO DE DADOS, 9., 1994, São Paulo. Anais [...]. São Paulo: USP, 1994. p. 16-29. (Example of a paper published in conference proceedings)

DANTAS, José Alves; COSTA, Fábio Moraes da; NIYAMA, Jorge Katsumi; MEDEIROS, Otávio Ribeiro de. Regulação da auditoria em sistemas bancários: análise do cenário internacional e fatores determinantes. Revista Contabilidade & Finanças, São Paulo, v. 25, n. 64, p. 7-18, jan./abr. 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1519-70772014000100002. Available at: https://revistas.usp.br/rcf/pt_BR/article/view/80746. Accessed on: 20 May 2014. (Example of an online journal article with a DOI)

LUCK, Heloisa. Liderança em gestão escolar. 4. ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2010. (Example of a book)

MORAES, João Antônio de; RILLIARD, Albert. Prosody and Emotion in Brazilian Portuguese. In: ARMSTRONG, Meghan E.; HENRIKSEN, Nicholas; VANRELL, Maria del Mar (ed.). Intonational Grammar in Ibero-Romance: Approaches across linguistic subfields. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2016. p. 135-152. (Example of a book chapter)

RODRIGUES, Ana Lúcia Aquilas. Impacto de um programa de exercícios no local de trabalho sobre o nível de atividade física e o estágio de prontidão para a mudança de comportamento. 2009. Dissertação (Mestrado em Fisiopatologia Experimental) – Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2009. (Example of an academic thesis or dissertation)

SEKEFF, Gisela. O emprego dos sonhos. Domingo, Rio de Janeiro, ano 26, n. 1344, p. 30-36, 3 fev. 2002. (Example of a print periodical article)

Additional Information

After the main text and before the References, provide the following information:

Acknowledgements (optional): Any acknowledgements should be presented in their own paragraph with a header.

Competing Interests (required): Declare any competing interests for authors. If there are none, state "The author(s) declare(s) no competing interests."

Research Preregistration (if applicable): Confirm in this section if research was preregistered, include links to preregistrations and indicate if any analysis plan changes occurred.

Data Availability Statement (required): Provide a Data Availability Statement.

Ethics and Consent (if applicable): Approvals from ethics committees should be detailed in this section, if applicable, including committee name and approval reference.

Disclosure of Funding Sources (if applicable): Declare research support received to promote transparency.

File Specifications

Submit manuscripts as DOCX, ODT, or LaTeX source files. Figures should be in SVG, PDF, or EPS (vector) or 300 dpi PNG/TIFF (raster). Tables must be editable, not images. Include data files in the supplementary materials or a data repository, using formats appropriate to the data type and, whenever possible, open and interoperable formats (for example, CSV or TSV for tabular data).

Pre-Submission Checklist

• Ensure that title, abstract, and keywords appear in two languages.
• Number all sections except the Introduction.
• Verify that all figures and tables have captions, ALT text, and color-blind–safe design; provide data files when relevant.
• Confirm that equations are editable and not images.
• Check that citations follow ABNT NBR 10520 and references follow NBR 6023, with DOI URLs.
• Include declarations for conflicts of interest, data availability, ethics, and funding.
• Proofread the text thoroughly; the editorial team will not perform language editing.