Author Guidelines

10.20396/td.v14i4.8654094

Terræ Didatica publishes original knowledge and experiences, scientific or educational, as highlighted in the item Objectives. Contributions of different types are accepted as Supplementary Material: animations, games, demonstrations or didactic applications of academic and professional research, as long as they constitute innovations. Authors of scientific communications published in other journals in the Geosciences area are invited to produce original didactic materials and creatively connect their research with fields of knowledge related to science, teaching, history and education.

Papers can be written in English, Portuguese or Spanish. The journal Terræ Didatica accepts the following types of contributions:

1. Article – Theoretical and practical bases, data and original and unpublished results of scientific and / or educational research that constitute relevant contributions to knowledge or stimulate the exchange of methodologies and innovative teaching and research practices;
2. Review – Synthesis studies or revisions about the state-of-the-art knowledge of specific, current and widely-used topics. The theme(s) and author(s) may eventually be invited by the Editorial Board;
3. Practical Activity – Proposals, ideas, experiments and activities for the classroom or laboratory that contribute to disseminate knowledge;
4. Field Route – Descriptions of natural exhibitions, organized in itineraries for field visits and scientific expeditions;
5. Discussion / Review – contributions and comments on recent Articles or Communications, followed by Replicas by the author (s) of the original work. The texts should be brief, objective and concise.
6. Scientific Dissemination – Relevant works that contribute to the dissemination and popularization of Geosciences.
7. Brief Communication – news, information, summaries and reports that contain results of interest or are part of ongoing investigations.

Manuscript production

Manuscript structure

The cover page should be submitted as a separate file – Title Page – by the online submission system. It must include:

- Title of the manuscript in Portuguese and English.

- Names of the authors in direct order (no more than six authors) with the respective academic degree of each one, institution to which it is linked, eventual institutional affiliations and corresponding ORCID identification (Open Researcher and Contributor ID).

- Full address of the corresponding author, to whom all correspondence must be addressed, including the email address and telephone number.

The Text (main document) must be submitted without identification of the authors by the online submission system, as an individual file. Original research articles are usually composed of the following sections, which are described below.

For papers to be sent for publication in Terræ Didatica, the following is required:

1. Title Page / Cover Page (in a separate file from the Text file): This page should contain the title, full name (s) of the authors without abbreviations, degrees, affiliation institution; department and / or area (when available), city, state, country. Abbreviations or acronyms for state and institution / company may be indicated, when they are easily identifiable. There should only be one author name that is responsible for the match, including email address, postal address, and phone numbers with a prefix. Authors are required to subscribe to the ORCiD system to avoid discrepancies. The ORCiD (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a unique, free and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes each academic / researcher and eliminates any ambiguity and similarity of names of authors and individuals.
2. Text file, without identification data of the authors, covering all elements (whenever relevant), described in items 3 to 8 below.
3. Synthetic title and consistent with content. The title should describe the content of the article in a clear, specific and concise manner, being limited to ten words, if possible, but never exceeding 16 words.
4. Abstract, beginning with Title of work spilled in English, using first capital letters (uppercase) for names, followed by end point and text corresponding to the abstract, with up to 150 words; the abstract should contain: purpose of the communication; procedures used (research methods); summary of data or information collected; conclusions and possible applications or recommendations of additional suggested work. A factual and informative summary never admits: (a) acknowledgements; (b) third party results or (c) bibliographic citations.
5. Keywords: Indication of at least two to at most five keywords equivalent to keywords. Avoid repetition of terms already contained in the title of the article. Texts in English, in addition to the abstract, should contain a summary in Portuguese and Spanish.
6. Text, without insertion of illustrations and preferably with impersonal writing, adopting the third person. Insert the titles of the illustrations (tables and figures) in the body of the text, as close as possible to its first reference in the text.
7. The acceptable size for Articles and Reviews is at least 4,000 and at most 8,000 words, including tables, figures and bibliographic references cited. The acceptable size for Short Communications is a minimum of 800 and a maximum of 2,000 words, including tables, figures and references.
8. Suggested structure for articles:
9. Introduction and context of the work;
10. Goals;

iii. Materials, methods and techniques;

1. Presentation of data;
2. Discussion and interpretation of results;
3. Conclusions or final considerations;

vii. Acknowledgements;

viii. Bibliographic references cited.

1. Suggested structure for revisions:
2. Introduction highlighting the context and relevance of the theme;
3. Items and sub-items deemed appropriate to state the subject;

iii. Acknowledgements;

1. Bibliographic references cited.
2. Suggested structure for brief communications: structure similar to revisions, with or without subdivision into items and sub-items. The content, comments and information should be followed by conclusions.
3. Discussions and reviews should be presented in a timely manner, with or without divisions.

Brief Communications and Discussion may include acknowledgments, references and illustrations.

Depending on the nature of the work, the structure may be different from the ones suggested, provided adequate to a good exposure of the information.

9. Supplementary Material: This designation includes any animations, games, demonstrations or applications, which are presented in digital copy. Programs must be self-executing (stand-alone), that is, independent of the installation of specific programs and / or features to function in the user's equipment. For commercial or free-to-use programs, the electronic address (or addresses) where the programs and plug-ins required to use them can be obtained should also be provided. In the case of resources available on the World Wide Web, the complete link of each site visited and the date of the last visit must be provided.
10. List of illustration titles (pictures, photos, boards, tables, pictures, etc.).
11. Illustrations must be provided in separate files, individual, in .TIFF format or .PNG format.13.
12. Reference letter, indicating the type of work and the importance of its publication.

How to register and to submit

The registration in the system and subsequent access, by means of a login and password, are mandatory for the submission of papers, as well as to follow the ongoing editorial process.

Do you already have a login/password access to Terrae Didatica?

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Do you not have login/password?
Access the registration page

Manuscript Submission

The magazine has eliminated printed paper in the submission process, which is done entirely in electronic media, by means of author registration, file upload and metadata reviewing, using the link:

https://periodicos.sbu.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/td/login

Metadata

Filling in metadata needs to be done in the three established languages. All authors, or at least one, must insert their registration data in the ORCiD system and the respective link to CV Lattes in the system. It is also necessary to indicate institutional affiliation as completely as possible in the Portal form.

The magazine asks that the illustrations be submitted as material attached to e-mails to the editors. The illustrations can also be gathered in a zipped file and transferred to the editors by some system such as https://wetransfer.com/. Please do not enter them in the Portal. As soon as the manuscript and the cover page are correctly inserted in the OJS system, the receipt will be acknowledged and the evaluation deadlines will be indicated.

The illustrations must be submitted by e-mail, as follows: It is recommended to organize them in the form of individual files, in TIFF format, with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI. All illustrations must be gathered in a zipped file and transferred to the magazine's editors through a system such as https://wetransfer.com/. It is requested that they are not inserted in the Portal's OJS system. Figures contained in .DOC files are not accepted, due to the low quality for reproduction. Also in the case of Articles and Reviews organized in large files that cannot be attached to e-mails, the author (s) can submit 1 (one) compressed digital file (zipped), of all files that make up the work, for some free web service that allows electronic shipment of large files.

In the case of Discussions, Brief Communications, Book Reviews and News, the author (s) must submit the text electronically.

Manuscript specifications

As part of the submission process, authors are required to verify compliance of the submission with respect to all items listed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the standards will be returned.

1. It is suggested that Articles and Reviews have a minimum of 4,000 and a maximum of 8,000 words, including tables, figures and references.
2. Discussions, Short Communications, Book and News Reviews should have about 2,000 words, including tables, figures, and references.
3. Page and font specifications
• A4 paper size.
• Top and bottom margins by 2.5 cm.
• Side margins at 2.0 cm (17cm lines).
• Text font: Times New Roman, body 12.
• Text with left alignment, no hyphenation.
• Do not insert tables, graphics and pictures inside the text. Insert the title of the corresponding illustration to indicate the ideal point where it should be placed.
• Text files must be in a format compatible with text editors, preferably DOC, DOCX or RTF (Rich Text Format) extension. Texts made with little-known programs or on other platforms need should be converted for submission.

1. References

As TD standards were a "mix" of international models, in 2019 the editors decided to adjust the references to a single standard, using the American Psychological Association (APA) format, one of the most common in high-penetration journals. The publication manual is not free (https://www.apastyle.org/products/4200066), but there are several websites with detailed instructions.

Useful sources:
APA Style Blog referencing DOI objects, at: https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/03/doi-display-guidelines-update-march-2017.html

A Guide to APA Referencing Style: 6^th Edition, at: student.ucol.ac.nz/library/onlineresources/Documents/APA_Guide_2017.pdf.

American Psychological Association (APA) Guide Sixth Edition, 2010, at: http://www.eiu.edu/edadmin/pdf/9%2027%202010%20American%20Psychological%20Association%20Guide%20Revised.pdf

Since the March 2019, volume 15, Terræ Didatica uses exclusively the APA standard. In the body of the text, citations should be enclosed in parentheses, as follows:

• One author: (Gould, 1965)
• Two authors: (Pedrinaci & Berjillos, 1994)
• Three or more authors (Sequeiros et al., 1996)
• Various works (Seddon, 1996, Loster, 1999, Dartmouth Flood Observatory, 2004)

1. Highlights should be italicized. Never use underlined or bold fonts. The use of bold should be restricted to the indication of volumes of periodicals in bibliographical references and to exceptional cases within the text.

1. Tables and figures
• Tables and figures should be numbered and quoted in sequence within the text, appearing with the abbreviated and initial capital letter only when quoted in parentheses (Tab. 1). Charts are classified as figures, being numbered in sequence.
• Each table or figure should come in separate file. All must have titles or subtitles, with the necessary information to understand the data.
• Tables, figures, tables, and all graphic material should have their text formatted in Times New Roman or Arial. The use of specific fonts and symbols should be mentioned to the publishers.
• Tables will be reformatted to the default presentation of Terræ Didatica.
• Vector maps and graphics that contain captions should come in two versions, one with text typed in Arial font and the other with text converted into curves.
• There are no restrictions on the use of color in images, but in the printed version the reproduction of images will be performed in shades of gray.

1. Graphic material

The graphic material must pursue the required quality for publication. The images will be evaluated before publishing.

• Photographic image files (bitmap-half tone) must have been generated with a resolution (density) of at least 300 dpi (dots per inch), considering the final application format;
• Photographs produced with digital machines must come with the highest resolution and minimum compression, in order to reduce the loss of quality and allow greater autonomy of manipulation of the files in the publishing processes.
• Images with no resolution or quality required should be replaced or rejected.
• Do not resize (magnify) the resolution of generated images with lower density.

For the production of raster images or vector files the following conditions and limitations must be observed:

• Photographic image files (bitmap-half tone) must have been generated with a resolution (density) of at least 300 DPI (dots per inch), considering the final application format;
• Photographs produced with digital machines must come with the highest resolution and minimum compression, in order to reduce the loss of quality and allow greater autonomy of manipulation of the files in the publishing processes.
• Bad resolution images or without the required quality should be replaced or rejected.
• Do not resize (magnify) the resolution of images generated with lower density.

Para a produção de imagens raster ou arquivos vetoriais devem ser observadas as seguintes condições e limitações:

• Lineart images must be generated with a minimum resolution of 600 DPI to avoid serrated contours.
• Use preferably TIF (Tagged Image File Format) file for images.
• Vector image files can be sent in the following formats: CDR or CMX (Corel Environment), AI (Adobe Environment) DXF or DWG (CAD Environment).
• Avoid sending final images in JPG standard or coming from JPG files. The compression processes of this format damage the quality and leave marks that make difficult the use of the images.
• Picture files will not be accepted inside DOC, DOCX or PDF files, even if they are in high resolution.
• GIF files are not suitable for publishing and are not supported.
• Other technical aspects of using images can be clarified on request.
1. References [Note: avoid the expression "Bibliographic references"] 
• Papers cited in the body of the communication should be referred to at the end, in the following pattern:

Articles in periodicals

Costa, D. M. da, & Souza, E. R. (2018). Conceptions of mountain formation, foulding, fault and the continental drift in geography textbooks between the decades of 1930 to 1960. Terræ Didatica, 14(4), 349-354. doi: 10.20396/td.v14i4.8654094.

Halliday, A. N. (2000). Terrestrial accretion rates and the origin of the Moon. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 176(1), 17-30. doi: 10.1016/S0012-821X(99)00317-9. [Obs.: no caso de DOI, não é preciso indicar a data de acesso].

Passow, M., Pereira, H., & Peart, L. (2013). A brief history of scientific ocean drilling programs. Breve história dos programas científicos de perfuração oceânica. Terræ Didatica, 9(2), 65-73. doi: 10.20396/td.v9i2.8637392.

Seddon, G. (1996). Thinking like a geologist: the culture of geology Mawson Lecture 1996. Austr. J. Earth Sciences, 43, 487-495.

Pedrinaci, E., Alcalde, S., Alfaro, P. Almodóvar, G. R., Barrera, J. L., Belmonte, Á, … Roquero, E. (2013). Alfabetización en Ciencias de la Tierra. Rev. de la Enseñanza de las Ciencias de la Tierra, 21(2), 117-129. Recuperado de: http://www.raco.cat/index.php/ECT/article/view/274145/362238. Acesso 29.01.2018. [Obs.: When there are eight (8) or more authors, include the first six (6) authors’ names and then use ellipsis points (...) before concluding with the last author’s name.].

Book chapters

Gould, S. J. (1984). Toward the vindication of punctuational change. In: Berggren, W. A., Van Couvering, J. A. (Eds.). 1984. Catastrophes and Earth history. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 9-34.

Book, dissertations and thesis

Gould, S. J. (1987). Seta do tempo. Ciclo do tempo. São Paulo: Cia. das Letras. 221p.

Martins, J. R. S. (2014). Controvérsias e problematização no ensino de Geociências. (Tese Doutorado). Campinas: Inst. Geoc., Univ. Est. Campinas. URL: http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/286640. Accessed feb.10.2018.

Souza, E. R. de. (2015). O potencial didático das imagens geocientíficas em livros de textos do ensino secundário: representação da dinâmica interna da Terra. Campinas: Inst. Geoc., Univ. Est. Campinas. (Tese Dout.). URL: http://repositorio.unicamp.br/jspui/handle/REPOSIP/286581. Accessed feb.10. 2018.

Web Pages

Dartmouth Flood Observatory. (2018). Space-based measurement, mapping, and modeling of surface water for research, humanitarian, and water management applications. URL: http://floodobservatory.colorado.edu/. Accessed feb.10. 2018.

Public Knowledge Project. (2016). Open Journal Systems (OJS). URL: https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/. Accessed feb.10. 2018.

Articles in electronic periodicals or published on the Web

Loster, T. (1999). Flood trends and global change. In: Euroconference on global change and catastrophe risk management: flood risks in Europe. Proc...,  Laxenburg: IIASA. URL: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/RMP/june99/papers/ loster.pdf. Accessed feb.10. 2018.

 Copyright Statement

Privacy Policy

The names and addresses informed in this journal will be used exclusively for the services provided by this publication and are not available for other purposes or to third parties.

Suplementary Material

This document provides guidelines for submission of Supplementary Material (SM), including MS content, the type of files the journal can accept, the size restrictions for individual files, and how Supplementary Information should be presented.

Structure of Suplementary Material guidelines

1. General information. 20
2. Content 21
3. Tips for submitting SM... 21
4. File Formats and Size. 22
5. Submission of Supplementary Material 22
6. Check-List to control the Supplementary Material 23

1. General information

Supplementary Material (SM) or Supplementary Information is every important material for completing or concluding a document that can not be entered in the online and printed versions. By definition, every SM of articles is peer-reviewed, but can not be included on TD pages for reasons of space or medium (e.g. animations, executable files, movie clips, or sound files).

A SM can not be edited, so the author must ensure a clear and concise presentation with appropriate text style and compliance with the published document. During SM processing for online publication, the standard formatting of the journal will be applied, but the content will remain unchanged.

SM is posted on the free part, available on the Terræ Didatica website at the time of publication and may not be exclusively hosted on the authors' own sites for peer review or publication purposes. Even the author can not change it after the document has been accepted for publication. The publishers assume no responsibility for the maintenance of any links or email addresses provided in SM.

2. Contents

Supplementary Material is accepted in any section of the journal except Brief Communication. It is recommended to combine SM in a single PDF, which should be presented for download as the author wishes readers, editors and reviewers to read or consult.

When organizing your “basic” SM in PDF for online publication, the author should not insert header, footer, or paging data into the document. Tables can be included in Supplementary Material only if they are unsuitable for formatting, such as large data sets or raw data unsuitable for Excel files. The following nomenclature is used to designate the set or parts of Supplementary Information:

1. Supplementary methods
2. Supplementary table (s)
3. Further discussion
4. Supplementary equation (s)
5. Additional note (s) (including notes clarifying statistical data or other figures)
6. Additional data

Some SM types (below) can not be presented as PDF for technical reasons or are best presented in an editable format. Provide these types of SM in one of the permitted formats as they will be published along with the PDF of the rest of the SM, and downloaded as individual files.

7. Supplementary video(s)
8. Additional audio (s)
9. Supplementary Video and Audio Legend (s): Provide separate captions (in editable document) or include them in the SM Guide, see below:

3. Hints for presenting SM

• Leave enough space, 2.5 cm in the top and bottom of the document, for headers and footers that will be inserted during the SM's internal processing by the magazine.
• Avoid references (bibliographies) within SM. They must be included in the manuscript that will originate the printed / online version.
• Number additional tables other than the numbering of printed / online tables (label the first table in SM as “Supplementary Table 1” and so on).
• Include an additional “SM Guide” text file called SM.doc, which should contain:

1. A title for each file. For example, a single PDF can merge Supplementary Methods and Supplementary Notes; the SM should preferably be provided in a single file or with as few individual files as possible: Supplementary Table 1.
2. A text summary for each file (no more than 50 words) that describes the contents of the file. Descriptions of individual tables must be provided if these items are sent as separate files.
3. For SM presented in a single PDF, the description should indicate how many display items and what types of text are contained in the file. It should also provide an overview of the set of display items. The summaries of SM Guide will be displayed on the SM Online download link as a guide for readers.

• For additional video and audio files, provide a one-phrase caption and a short caption (no more than 100 words and no references or citations) for each video / audio file. Include the information in a separate editable file (or include it in the MSGuide document) and not in the main MS in PDF.
• Ensure that individual MS parts (for example, videos) are referenced at least once in the printed version of the document, choosing the most appropriate location.

4. File Formats and Size

• Ensure that file sizes are as small as possible so users can quickly download them.
• Images must have a maximum size of 640 x 480 pixels (9 x 6.8 inches at 72 pixels per inch). The magazine will not accept more than ten files. Sound and video files and combined single PDFs can be up to 30 Mb per file, but the maximum cumulative size of all files can not exceed 150 Mb.
  • A Supplementary Material, or at least most of them, is expected to be considerably smaller than that.
• Files are accepted in any of the following formats:
  • Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) (preferred format)
  • MS Word Document (.doc, .docx)
  • Plain ASCII Text (.txt)
  • Rich Text Format (.rtf)
  • PostScript (.ps)
  • Encapsulated postcript (.eps)
  • HTML Document (.htm)
  • MS Excel Worksheet (.xls, .xlsx)
  • Video QuickTime (.mov) (preferred)
  • Audio File (.wav)
  • MPEG / MPG Animation (.mpg, .mp4, .mp3)
  • Systems Biology Markup Language (.sbml, .xml, .owl)
• For high-quality videos, use H.264 encoding, and 16: 9 aspect ratio (4: 3 is the second best alternative); do not squeeze the video. Videos will be rendered using proper platform; for recommendations and specifications for additional source files, see page: http://support.brightcove.com/pt/docs/video-source-file-specifications-and-recommendations
• If your file size exceeds the limits or if you can not upload in these formats, consult the publishers of the magazine.

5. Submission of Supplementary Material

• For initial submission, the MS can be sent online with the rest of the document through the online submission service.
• When a document with MS is accepted, the final form of MS must be uploaded to the server through the online submission service. In addition to the MS files, load the SMGuide.doc as specified above.

6. Check-list for Supplementary Material

Check the following when sending MS:

1. Does the denomination of each piece of MS correspond to one of the nine categories above (“contents” item)?
2. Is the numbering system different from the one used in the printed / online version?
3. Are the formats among those accepted by the magazine?
4. Are the individual and cumulative file sizes within the allowed limits?
5. Does the submitted MS-DOS text file "Supplementary Material Guide.doc" contain the titles of each MS file, descriptive summaries, and video / audio captions and captions?