Revista CLAVES, linked to the Graduate Program in Music of the Federal University of Paraíba — PPGM-UFPB, receives continuous-flow submissions of unpublished texts in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, dedicated to the main subareas of music research. The journal publishes articles, reviews, interviews, and translations, as well as texts linked to thematic dossiers organized through specific calls for papers.
Submission to Revista CLAVES implies the authors' agreement with its editorial, ethical, and copyright policies, including open access, Creative Commons CC-BY license, editorial and/or peer review, similarity checking, declaration of conflicts of interest, data availability, use of preprints, declaration of the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, and full responsibility for the submitted content.
1. Types of submission
Revista CLAVES accepts the following types of contribution:
Articles: unpublished academic-scientific texts resulting from original research, theoretical reflection, critical analysis, documentary study, artistic research, educational research, or investigation related to the subareas of music. The journal also considers texts that present processes, partial results, or final results of academic, artistic, pedagogical, or documentary investigations, provided that they have scientific relevance and methodological consistency.
Reviews: critical appraisals of books, scores, recordings, editions, documents, audiovisual productions, or other materials relevant to music research.
Interviews: dialogues with researchers, artists, composers, educators, performers, or personalities of recognized activity in the field of music, accompanied by an introductory contextualization and a justification of relevance.
Translations: texts of recognized academic, artistic, historical, or documentary interest to the field of music, accompanied by the complete identification of the original source and the necessary authorizations, when applicable.
2. Languages
Manuscripts are accepted in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Regardless of the language of the text, the manuscript must present title, abstract, and keywords in the original language and in a foreign language, as indicated in the journal template.
3. Originality and unpublished status
Submitted texts must be unpublished and must not be under simultaneous evaluation by another journal, edited volume, book, or academic publication. The submission of manuscripts derived from theses, dissertations, undergraduate final papers, research reports, conference papers, or preprints is permitted, provided that this information is duly declared at the time of submission and in a note within the manuscript, and provided that the new text presents expanded reflections and/or results, in addition to development compatible with a scientific article.
When the manuscript has a preliminary version published on a preprint server, the authors must provide the name of the server, the DOI or access link, and any differences between the preprint version and the version submitted to Revista CLAVES.
4. Conditions for submission
Before submitting the manuscript, authors must verify that:
- a) the text is appropriate to the editorial scope of Revista CLAVES;
- b) the manuscript is unpublished and is not under evaluation by another journal;
- c) the file follows the template made available by the journal;
- d) all authorship information has been removed from the body of the text and from the file properties when the submission is intended for double-blind review;
- e) citations, references, images, scores, musical examples, tables, charts, transcriptions, and other materials used are properly identified and authorized, when necessary;
- f) any conflicts of interest have been declared;
- g) the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools has been declared;
- h) research involving human participants has approval from a Research Ethics Committee, when applicable;
- i) data, materials, codes, documents, or primary sources of the research have been indicated or their unavailability has been justified.
5. Manuscript formatting
Manuscripts must be submitted exclusively through the journal's electronic system, in an editable file, according to the Revista CLAVES template.
The body of the text should preferably follow these guidelines:
Times New Roman font, size 12;
1.5 line spacing in the body of the text;
first-line indentation of 1.25 cm;
long quotations in a separate block;
references in Times New Roman font, size 12, single spacing, and left alignment;
figures, charts, tables, graphs, musical examples, and scores numbered, titled, and accompanied by a source indication;
recommended length for articles: between 6,000 and 15,000 words, excluding pre-textual elements, references, annexes, and appendices.
The journal template provides for the inclusion of DOI, editorial dates, section, title, subtitle, authorship identification, resumo/abstract, keywords, body of the article, references, authors' biographies, data availability, conflict of interest, review modality, and suggested citation of the article.
Download the Revista CLAVES Template
6. Recommended structure for articles
Articles should include, whenever applicable:
Title and subtitle: clear, objective, and consistent with the content of the work.
Abstract: up to 200 words, preferably containing objective, methodology, results, and conclusions.
Keywords: 3 to 5 terms, separated by semicolons.
Abstract and keywords: English version of the abstract and keywords.
Introduction: presentation of the topic, research problem, objectives, justification, and organization of the text.
Development: theoretical framework, literature review, methodological procedures, analysis, discussion of results, or critical reflection.
Final considerations: synthesis of contributions, limitations of the study, and future perspectives.
References: only works actually cited in the text, organized alphabetically, according to the standard adopted by the journal (see template).
7. Citation and reference standards
Citations and references must follow the standards adopted by Revista CLAVES, as indicated in the template. References must be presented in alphabetical order, without numbering, and must include only the sources actually cited in the manuscript.
The accuracy of references, the correspondence between citations in the body of the text and the final list, as well as the correct indication of authorship, date, title, place, publisher, journal, DOI, access link, and other bibliographic data are the responsibility of the authors.
The journal accepts references to books, chapters, journal articles, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations, scores, recordings, videos, podcasts, interviews, legal documents, technical standards, websites, audiovisual materials, and other documents relevant to music research.
8. Images, scores, musical examples, and third-party materials
The use of images, scores, musical examples, photographs, graphs, tables, documents, transcriptions, facsimiles, excerpts from musical works, sound recordings, or audiovisual records must comply with applicable legislation and copyright rules.
It is the authors' responsibility to obtain authorization for the reproduction of copyrighted materials when necessary. All visual, sound, musical, or documentary material must be accompanied by title, numbering, source, and information on authorization or public domain, when applicable.
9. Authorship and author contributions
All authors listed in the manuscript must have contributed significantly to the conception, development, analysis, writing, or critical review of the work, must approve the final version submitted, and must assume public responsibility for the content.
For coauthored manuscripts, the inclusion of a section entitled "Author Contribution Statement" at the end of the text and before the references is recommended, indicating each author's individual contribution. The statement may use the CRediT — Contributor Roles Taxonomy as a reference, including roles such as research conception, methodology, investigation, data analysis, source curation, writing, review, editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.
Revista CLAVES recommends that manuscripts submitted by authors in academic training, especially undergraduate and master's students, preferably be accompanied by a coauthor with a doctoral degree or by a researcher with recognized experience in the field, without prejudice to the evaluation of the manuscript based on its academic merit.
10. Research ethics
Research involving human participants must comply with current ethical standards. When applicable, authors must inform the Certificate of Presentation for Ethical Review — CAAE — number in the manuscript and attach, as a supplementary document, proof of approval by a Research Ethics Committee.
Revista CLAVES adopts principles of ethics in scientific publication aligned with national and international editorial best practices, especially with regard to the prevention of plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, citation manipulation, improper authorship, simultaneous submission, undeclared conflicts of interest, and other forms of scientific misconduct. These guidelines are compatible with COPE and SciELO recommendations for editorial integrity and ethics in scientific publication. (SciELO)
11. Similarity checking
All manuscripts submitted to Revista CLAVES may be analyzed by similarity-checking software, including Similarity Check/Crossref or an equivalent tool.
The identification of improper textual similarity, plagiarism, self-plagiarism, appropriation of ideas, unauthorized reproduction of materials, or lack of proper citation may result in the return of the manuscript to the authors, suspension of the review process, rejection of the submission, or other appropriate editorial measures.
12. Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence
Authors must declare any use of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools at any stage of the research or manuscript writing, including study conception, literature review, data analysis, writing, translation, language revision, abstract preparation, metadata preparation, or submission.
The declaration must be included in a specific section at the end of the manuscript, before the references, entitled "Declaration of use of Generative Artificial Intelligence", specifying:
- a) tool used;
- b) version, when available;
- c) stage of the work in which it was used;
- d) purpose of use;
- e) form of human verification of the generated content.
When no generative AI tools have been used, the following statement is recommended:
"The authors declare that they did not use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools in the preparation of this manuscript."
AI tools may not be listed as authors or coauthors. The use of AI does not exempt authors from full responsibility for the submitted content, the originality of the work, the accuracy of the information, the proper attribution of sources, and compliance with the journal's ethical, copyright, and editorial standards.
13. Conflict of interest
Authors must declare any financial, institutional, academic, professional, personal, or other conflict of interest that may influence the research, the interpretation of data, the writing of the manuscript, or its editorial evaluation.
When there are no conflicts of interest, the following statement is recommended:
"The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest related to this manuscript."
Editors and reviewers must also disclose conflicts of interest and refrain from participating in processes in which their impartiality may be compromised.
14. Availability of research data and materials
Revista CLAVES encourages authors to make available, whenever possible, the data, materials, documents, codes, transcriptions, scores, sound recordings, audiovisual records, or other contents that support the manuscript, preferably in reliable repositories.
When data cannot be made available for ethical, legal, copyright, confidentiality, or participant-protection reasons, this restriction must be stated and justified.
Suggested statement:
The data, materials, and documents supporting this study are available at [repository/link].
Or:
The data for this study are not publicly available due to ethical, legal, copyright, or confidentiality restrictions.
The open data policy is aligned with Open Science practices, which seek to promote transparency, reproducibility, preservation, and responsible reuse of research materials. (SciELO Brazil)
15. Preprints
Revista CLAVES accepts the submission of manuscripts previously made available on preprint servers, provided that this condition is declared at the time of submission.
Authors must provide the name of the server, the DOI or link to the preprint, and, when relevant, indicate the changes made between the preprint version and the version submitted to the journal.
The submission of manuscripts from preprints does not exempt them from editorial and/or peer review.
16. Review process
Submitted manuscripts first undergo a preliminary review by the Editorial Board or the responsible editors, who verify compliance with the journal's scope, guidelines for authors, ethical standards, formal quality, and editorial policy.
When approved in the preliminary stage, the texts proceed to peer review, preferably in a double-blind modality, except in cases in which the journal adopts or offers forms of open review. Each manuscript may be sent to two ad hoc reviewers. In the case of divergent reviews, the journal may request an additional review.
Possible editorial decisions include:
- a) accept;
- b) accept with revisions;
- c) request mandatory revisions;
- d) submit to a new round of review;
- e) reject.
The final decision on publication rests with the editors of Revista CLAVES.
17. Open review
As part of its Open Science practices, Revista CLAVES may offer authors, when available, the possibility of opting for modalities of opening the peer review process, such as reviewer identification, publication of reviews, or other forms of editorial transparency.
The adoption of open review practices will follow the conditions informed by the journal at the time of submission and will respect the integrity, confidentiality, and impartiality of the editorial process.
18. Corrections, retractions, and misconduct
Revista CLAVES may publish corrections, clarifications, expressions of concern, retractions, or other editorial notices when errors, inaccuracies, ethical failures, plagiarism, fraudulent data, improper authorship, or other forms of misconduct are identified in submitted or published manuscripts.
Authors who identify a relevant error in a published text must immediately notify the journal editors and cooperate with correction or retraction procedures.
19. Fees
Revista CLAVES does not charge fees for submission, evaluation, publication, revision, editing, or download of published texts.
20. Copyright and license
Authors of texts published in Revista CLAVES retain the copyright to their works and grant the journal the right of first publication.
Texts are published under the Creative Commons Attribution — CC-BY license, which permits reading, downloading, copying, distributing, printing, searching, indexing, sharing, and reuse, provided that authorship and the original source are properly cited.
The policy of editorial transparency, open access, and open licensing is in line with international principles of best practice for open access scientific journals. (DOAJ)
21. Self-archiving
Revista CLAVES allows authors to deposit their accepted or published manuscripts in institutional repositories, personal pages, academic CVs, academic networks, and social media, provided that the full citation of the version published on the journal's website is included.
22. Appeals and complaints
Authors may file a substantiated appeal against editorial decisions when they identify a possible procedural error, an undeclared conflict of interest, or a relevant inconsistency in the evaluation of the manuscript.
The appeal must be submitted to the Editorial Board of Revista CLAVES, which will analyze the request independently. Filing an appeal does not guarantee reversal of the editorial decision.
23. Contact
Questions about submissions, editorial standards, review, publication ethics, or manuscript tracking should be sent to: revistaclaves@emo.ufpb.br
