Writing Rules

Cukurova Medical Journal is one of the official journals of Cukurova University Faculty of Medicine. Original articles, case reports, and short communications related to the either basic or extended clinical experience in medical sciences (i.e general medicine, basic medical sciences, surgical sciences) will be considered for publication. Review articles will be accepted upon request of the editorial board. The journal does not accept unsolicited review articles for consideration.

This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

The journal accepts articles written in English. Starting from 2023, The journal is published quarterly (fourth issues) comprising one volume per year.

Cukurova Medical Journal, the Publisher, and the Editors assume no responsibility for the statements in the articles; authors carry the scientific and legal responsibilties of their own articles. The manuscript which is submitted to the journal must not contain previously published material or material under consideration for publication elsewhere. Accepted manuscripts become the property of Cukurova Medical Journal and may not be republished. All manuscripts will undergo peer review. A final review and a subsequent decision relative to publication will then be made by the editorial board of Cukurova Medical Journal.

Cukurova Medical Journal does not charge any article processing or submission fees to the authors.

MANUSCRIPT EVALUATION

As a first step, manuscripts received are evaluated with regards to the instructions to authors. The approved articles are delivered to Editorial Board. The Editorial Board evaluates the context of articles and sends them to two referees in related fields. A final review and a subsequent decision relative to publication will then be made by the editor. The articles which are accepted by the Editorial Board, come in the list of publication and the authors of these articles are informed.

This journal uses double-blind peer review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity.

All manuscripts submitted are checked for plagiarism with Ithenticate software to ensure the originality, and to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts .

All manuscripts should be submitted via Dergipark online submission system.

GENERAL POLICIES

The work in the submitted manuscripts must have been carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html; EU Directive 2010/63/EU for animal experiments http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/legislation_en.htm; Uniform Requirements for manuscripts submitted to Biomedical journals http://www.icmje.org. This must be stated at an appropriate point in the article. Please read these Requirements first, then read our complementing guidelines given below.

The manuscript should be sent to the Journal with a Cover Letter which should indicate the name, signature, institution, correspondence address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address (if available) of the author (corresponding author) who is authorized to receive galley proofs. An Author’s Form, indicating the contributions of the authors and co-authors to the manuscript, (authorship credits being defined as in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals) copyright transfer, and acknowledgments, will be attached to the cover letter.

Only previously unpublished works should be submitted; all text including the solicited material, is subject to editorial review and revision. Manuscripts become the property of the Journal and may not be published elsewhere without the written permission from the editor. The Journal will not consider manuscripts that have appeared in other publications, nor will it consider differently written reports of previously published studies, updates of previously published studies that add small amounts of data or numbers of patients, or slightly different studies of a patient pool that has been described earlier (Exceptions for the above rules are manuscripts published in another language other than English or manuscripts published in the Proceedings of any meeting.) If an author is unsure whether specific printed material comprises prior or repetitive publication, he or she should alert the Editor in the transmittal letter and include copies of the publications in question. The authors should also pay utmost attention to stay away from any form of plagiarism.

Manuscript Submission

Text files should be submitted in any version of Microsoft Word format.

Illustrations and tables will be handled conventionally. Electronic files of figures and – if necessary - tables are welcome in separate files other than the main text file. The filenames of the illustration pointing to a figure, or to a table should be clearly indicated on the label of the disk. TIFF, BMP, JPEG, and PCX formats will be acceptable for illustrations.

As this file will be used in desktop publishing and Web publishing of the paper, the file submitted must be the final corrected version of the manuscript and must exactly agree with the final accepted version of the submitted paper manuscript.

Please follow the general instructions on style/arrangement and, in particular, the reference style as given in “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals”.

Submitted version should not contain any extraneous formatting instructions. For example:

Use hard carriage returns only at the end of paragraphs and display lines (e.g., titles, subheadings)
Do not use an extra return between paragraphs
Do not use an extra space at the start of a paragraph or for list entries
Do not indent runover lines in references
Turn off line spacing
Turn off hyphenation and justification
Do not specify page breaks, page numbers, or headers
Do not specify typeface (bold, italic, etc.)
Care should be taken to differentiate the number “one” and the letter “l”, and the number zero “0” and the letter “O”.
Non-standard characters (Greek letters, mathematical symbols, etc.) should be coded consistently throughout the text. Please make a list of such characters and provide a listing of the codes used.

The manuscript should be sent to the Journal during submission with a Cover Letter which should indicate the name, signature, institution, correspondence address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address (if available) of the author (corresponding author) who is authorized to receive galley proofs.

An Author’s Form, indicating the contributions of the authors and co-authors to the manuscript, (authorship credits being defined as in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals) copyright transfer, and acknowledgments, should be attached to the cover letter in submission process.

All other correspondences should be addressed to Editor-in-Chief Cukurova Medical Journal via e-mail editorcutf@cu.edu.tr

Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts should be organized as follows: Title page, abstract page, introduction, materials (or patients) and methods, results, discussion, references, tables, figures and legend page.

The Title Page should carry the following information:

(1) Title - meaningful and brief as possible. No longer than 135 characters. Do not use declarative titles.

(2) Names of authors - give full name, and certified degrees, but not academic degrees.

(3) Institutional affiliation - identify each author’s affiliation during the course of performing the study. Use superscript numbers, not symbols.

(4) Meeting presentation - if the material has been presented previously, supply names, places, and dates of meetings.

(5) Dual commitment – 1) For the Individual: disclose any financial interests, direct or indirect, of any author that might affect the conduct or reporting of the work they have submitted 2) For the Project: identify all sources in the form of grants, equipment, or drugs. Provide agency name and city, company name and city, and grant number.

(6) Running title - can be no longer than 40 characters.

Declaration of Ethical Conduct in the Text

(Please also see Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement (Ethical guidelines for publication) section at the end of this page)

When research involves human participants or animals, authors should state in the Title Page and Methods section the procedure used to ensure Ethical Conduct of Research. Research that involves human participants includes investigations that use only human blood or tissue, as well as work that entails only review of the medical records. The authors must confirm review of the study by the appropriate institutional review board or affirm that the protocol is consistent with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. If institutional review board approval was not obtained prior to the start of the study, the authors must state so and explain why this was the case. If the study was exempt from review by an institutional review board policy, the authors must provide assurance that such exemption was in compliance with their local institutional review board policy. The authors must assure adherence to ethical guidelines on informed consent and should affirm that such consent was obtained or that an institutional review board approved conduct of the research without explicit consent from the participants.

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

If patients are identifiable from illustrations, photographs, pedigrees, case reports, or other study data, Release Forms (or copies of the figures with the appropriate release statement) giving permission for publication must be submitted with the manuscript.

Abstracts

Each manuscript must include a Structured Abstract of 250 words or less.
It should appear on a separate page immediately following the title page and should comprise for separate paragraphs: Purpose or Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion.
Abstracts for short communications and case reports should not adhere to the above rules and not exceed 150 words.
Do not use abbreviations in abstract.
Below the abstract, authors should provide, and identify as such, 3 to 10 Key Words or short phrases that will assist indexers in cross-indexing the article and that may be published with the abstract.
Terms from the medical subject headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used; if suitable MeSH terms are not yet available for recently introduced terms, present terms may be used.
Turkish authors should also submit an abstract in Turkish with above-mentioned requirements. For international authors, editorial board will arrange and write Turkish abstracts and keywords.

Acknowledgement

Acknowledgement for personal or technical assistance should follow the discussion section on a separate page.
Use 12 points Times New Roman characters for the whole text. Number pages consecutively beginning with the title page. Put the page number in the lower right-hand corner of each page.
Place the page numbers and the last name of the first author on the right corner of each page including figures and legends.
The journal will print figures in color; and these illustrations will appear in their original colors on the Web version of the journal.

Style and punctuation of references
Journal article: [Reference number] Tunc O, Yucel B, Macit E, Gunal A, Gozubuyuk A, Gul H et al. Protective efficiacy of taurine against pulmonary edema progression: experimental study. J Cardiothorac Surg 2008; 28:57-9.

Book: [Reference number] Noback CR, Demarest RJ. The Human Nervous System, 2nd Ed. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1975.

Edited book: [Reference number] Phillips MK, Gain P. Hypertension and stroke. In Hypertension: Pathophysiology and Management, 2nd ed (Eds JH Laragh, BM Brenner): 495-498. London, Ran Press, 1985.

URL (Web Page): [Reference number] Stern M. Radial nerve entrapment. http://www.emedicine.com/orthoped/topic549.htm (accessed Dec 2005).

Format: Author, if available. Title of page as listed on the site. Address of page (date accessed).

Tables.

Each table should be given on a separate page.
Each table has a short, descriptive title.
Tables are numbered in the order cited in the text.
Abbreviations are defined as footnotes at the bottom of each table.
Tables should not duplicate data given in the text or figures.

Figures and Legends.

The complete sets of original figures must be submitted. Legends should be in the present tense (e.g., ‘Illustration shows ...’). Subjects’ names must not appear on the figures. Labels should contrast well with the background. Images should be uniform in size and magnification. Illustrations should be free of all identifying information relative to the subject and institution. Line drawings should be professional in quality. Written permission for use of all previously published illustrations must be included with submission, and the source should be referenced in the legends. Written permission from any person recognizable in a photo is required. Legends must be double spaced, and figures are numbered in the order cited in the text. Submit color prints only if color is essential in understanding the material presented. Label all pertinent findings.
Use metric system and System International (S.I.) units to give all the numerical data in the text. When others are unavoidable use their S.I. equivalents in brackets. Use genuine names of drugs unless the trade name is directly relevant to the discussion.

Submission checklist

The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Phone numbers

All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations
• Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement (Ethical guidelines for publication)

The publication of an article in the peer-reviewed journal Cukurova Medical Journal is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed articles support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behaviour for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society of society-owned or sponsored journals.

Cukurova University Faculty of Medicine, Turkey, as publisher of the journal, takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognise our ethical and other responsibilities.

We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, Editorial Board will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful to editors. Finally, we are working closely with other publishers and industry associations to set standards for best practices on ethical matters, errors and retractions - and are prepared to provide specialized legal review and counsel if necessary.

Duties of authors

(These guidelines are based on existing COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.)

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective, and editorial ‘opinion’ works should be clearly identified as such.

Data access and retention

Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data (consistent with the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases), if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Originality and plagiarism

The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted.

Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication

An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal a previously published paper. Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication. Further detail on acceptable forms of secondary publication can be found at www.icmje.org.

Acknowledgement of sources

Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.

Authorship of the paper

Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Hazards and human or animal subjects

If the work involves chemicals, procedures or equipment that have any unusual hazards inherent in their use, the author must clearly identify these in the manuscript. If the work involves the use of animal or human subjects, the author should ensure that the manuscript contains a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and that the appropriate institutional committee(s) has approved them. Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects. The privacy rights of human subjects must always be observed.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

Duties of editors

(These guidelines are based on existing COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.)

Publication decisions

The editor of a peer-reviewed journal is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published, often working in conjunction with the relevant society (for society-owned or sponsored journals). The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers (or society officers) in making this decision.

Fair play

An editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality

The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author.

Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers.

Editors should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

It should be ensured that the peer-review process for sponsored supplements is the same as that used for the main journal. Items in sponsored supplements should be accepted solely on the basis of academic merit and interest to readers and not be influenced by commercial considerations.

Non-peer reviewed sections of their journal should be clearly identified.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

Duties of reviewers

(These guidelines are based on existing COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.)

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper. Peer review is an essential component of formal scholarly communication, and lies at the heart of the scientific method. Cukurova Medical Journal shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

Promptness

Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of objectivity

Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of sources

Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and conflict of interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

CC License

Cukurova Medical Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND).

This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.