Guidelines

• Page and margins: A4 or Letter, 2.54 cm (1 inch) margins on all sides.
• Font: one readable font throughout, for example Times New Roman 12 pt, Calibri 11 pt, Arial 11 pt or Georgia 11 pt.
• Spacing and alignment: double spacing in the whole text, including references; text aligned to the left (ragged right), not justified.
• Paragraphs: first line indented by 1.27 cm (0.5 inch); no extra space between paragraphs.
• Page numbers: in the top right corner of every page.
• Title page and anonymization: for double-blind review, follow the journal’s instructions; the main file must not identify the authors.

Use only as many levels as the text needs, always in order. Do not number headings and do not label the Introduction.

Use the author–date system. In parentheses, join authors with “&”; in the narrative, use “and”. Every work cited must appear in the reference list, and vice versa.

• Short quotations (fewer than 40 words) stay in the text, in double quotation marks, with the page number.
• Block quotations (40 words or more) start on a new line, indented 1.27 cm, without quotation marks; the citation comes after the final punctuation.
• Paraphrases need author and year; a page number is recommended for long or specific passages.
• Use secondary sources sparingly: whenever possible, consult and cite the original work.

• Title “References”, centered and bold, on a new page; entries in alphabetical order by the first author’s surname (then by year), with a hanging indent of 1.27 cm.
• Give surnames and initials. List up to 20 authors; for 21 or more, give the first 19, an ellipsis (…) and the last author.
• Titles of articles, chapters and books in sentence case (only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns capitalized); journal names in Title Case and italic with the volume.
• Present the DOI as a full URL (https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx). If there is no DOI, give the URL of the page. Do not write “Retrieved from” unless the content changes over time.
• Use an en dash (–) in page ranges. Do not add the publisher’s location.

Legal sources follow the legal citation rules of APA 7, based on The Bluebook. For other jurisdictions, keep the official elements of the source (court, number, date, publication) and give a translation of the title in brackets when helpful.

• Tables: the label (Table 1) in bold above, the title on the next line in italic Title Case. Use horizontal lines only (top, below the header and bottom), without vertical lines; the table must be editable, not an image.
• Figures: the label (Figure 1) in bold above, the title on the next line in italic Title Case. Minimum 300 dpi, legible in grayscale, with alternative text.
• Notes go below, starting with Note. in italic (source, explanations, abbreviations); use letters for specific notes and asterisks for probability levels.
• Source: for reproduced or adapted material write Note. Adapted from or From followed by the citation, and obtain permission when required.
• Cite every table and figure in the text (“as shown in Table 1”) and place it right after the first mention or as indicated by the template.

• Words for numbers from zero to nine (“five participants”); numerals for 10 and above (“12 participants”).
• Numerals always for measurements, statistics, percentages (25%), dates, times, ages and scores; start a sentence with words, not numerals.
• Statistical symbols in italic: M, SD, n, N, p, t, F, r.
• P values: report exact values (p = .03) and use p < .001 for smaller values; no zero before the decimal point for values that cannot exceed 1 (.05).
• Currencies: use the code (USD, BRL) or the symbol consistently. Keep the decimal convention consistent with the language of the manuscript.

• Clarity: precise, concise and formal language, avoiding colloquial expressions, jargon and unnecessary words. Prefer the active voice.
• Verb tense: past tense for the literature review and the method (“Silva (2024) found…”); present tense for discussion and conclusions (“These findings suggest…”).
• Bias-free language: respect the preferences of the groups described, use specific terms (age, gender, race, disability), and the singular “they” when appropriate.
• Abbreviations: define at first use, with the full term first (competitive intelligence [CI]); use “e.g.,” and “i.e.,” only inside parentheses, with a comma after them.
• Punctuation: use the serial comma (“A, B, and C”); one space after periods; italics only for terms being introduced, titles and statistical symbols.
• Capitalization: Title Case in headings; sentence case in table and figure notes and in reference titles.

• Always review the generated references: imports often bring wrong capitalization, truncated authors and incomplete data.
• Check that every DOI opens the right article; missing DOIs can be looked up on Crossref.
• Never trust references generated by AI tools; import them from the original source and verify each one.
• Keep a copy of the file with the manager’s fields active for revisions; the file you submit must have the final APA text.