ETHICAL RULES
Editorial Policy
Editorial responsibilities
The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board are responsible for deciding whether articles submitted to Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences (CUNAS) will be published or not. The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board are constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board shall evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content free from any ethnic, gender, religious or political prejudice and are fully reasonable for ensuring that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
Author's responsibilities
The Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work which has not been published previously, and not been under consideration for publication elsewhere (except for an academic thesis). Parallel submission of the same paper to another journal results in elimination of the manuscript from consideration by the journal. The Authors also warrant that the manuscript is not and will not be published elsewhere after the publication in Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences in any language as well. It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that papers submitted to journal are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the article contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board as well as the Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Reviewers responsibilities
Reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on content without regard to ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief or political philosophy of the authors. They must have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders. Their judgments must be objective.
Reviewers should identify the relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. They must ensure that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential and must report to the Editor if they are aware of copyright infringement and plagiarism on the author's side.
A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor and excuse himself from the review process.
The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. The reviewers and editorial board cannot discuss the manuscripts with other persons. The reviewers are not allowed to have copies of the manuscripts for personal use and they cannot share manuscripts with others. Unless the authors and editor permit, the reviews of referees cannot be published or disclosed. The anonymity of the referees is important. In particular situations, the editor may share the review of one reviewer with other reviewers to clarify a particular point.
Reporting standards
A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards. Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all involved parties to make the data public. Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to be referred on the reference used, or to have permission from the copyright holders. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Authorship
Authors must make sure that all only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgments section.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a clear violation of scientific ethics and may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action. Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism. Any paper which shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected and those authors will not be permitted to submit papers to Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences forever.
Important note: The journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
Conflict of interest and funding
The Authors shall include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list if any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.
Open access policy
Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences is an Open Access Journal and no charges are required from the Authors to publish the articles.
Self-archiving Policy
Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences allows authors to deposit Author's Post-print (accepted version) and Publisher's version/PDF in an institutional repository and non-commercial subject-based repositories, or to publish it on Author's personal website (including social networking sites) and/or departmental website, at any time after the acceptance.
Copyright
The Authors retain copyright of the published article and have the right to use the article in the ways permitted to third parties. Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided. The Authors grant to the publisher the right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. Publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences’s Editorial Policies.
Peer-review policy
General information
Criteria for publication
The Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences receives many more submissions than it can publish. Therefore, we ask peer-reviewers to keep in mind that every paper that is accepted means that another good paper must be rejected. To be published in the Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences, a paper should meet four general criteria:
Provide strong evidence for its conclusions.
Be novel.
Be of extreme importance to scientists in a specific field.
Ideally, interesting to researchers in other related disciplines.
In general, to be acceptable a paper should represent an advance in understanding likely to influence thinking in a field. There should be a discernible reason as to why the work deserves the visibility of publication in the Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences.

The review process
All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staff. To save time for authors and peer-reviewers, only those papers that seem most likely to meet our editorial criteria are sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external review (although these decisions may be based on informal advice from specialists in the field).
Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, typically to one or two reviewers. The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers' advice.

Selecting peer-reviewers
Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer's characteristics. For instance, we avoid using people who are slow, careless, or do not provide reasoning for their views, whether harsh or lenient.
We check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review. Reviewers should bear in mind that these messages contain confidential information, which should be treated as such.

Writing the review
The primary purpose for the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision. The review should also instruct the authors as to how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it may be acceptable. As far as possible, a negative review should explain to the authors the weaknesses of their manuscript, so that rejected authors can understand the basis for the decision and see in broad terms what needs to be done to improve the manuscript. This is secondary to the other functions, however, and referees should not feel obliged to provide detailed, constructive advice to the authors of papers that do not meet the criteria for the journal (as outlined in the letter from the editor when asking for the review). If the reviewer believes that a manuscript would not be suitable for publication, his/her report to the author should be as brief as is consistent with enabling the author to understand the reason for the decision.

Anonymity
We do not release reviewers' identities to authors or to other reviewers, except when reviewers specifically ask to be identified. Unless they feel so strongly, however, we prefer that reviewers should remain anonymous throughout the review process and beyond.

Peer-review publication policies
All contributions submitted to the Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences that are selected for peer-review are sent to at least one - but usually two or more - independent reviewers, selected by the editors. Authors are welcome to suggest suitable independent reviewers and may also request that the journal excludes one or two individuals or laboratories. The journal sympathetically considers such requests and usually honors them, but the editor's decision on the choice of referees is final.

Ethics and security
Cukurova University Journal of Natural and Applied Sciences editors may seek advice about submitted papers not only from technical reviewers but also on any aspect of a paper that raises concerns. These may include, for example, ethical issues or issues of access to data or materials. Very occasionally, concerns may also relate to the implications to society of publishing a paper, including threats to security. In such circumstances, advice will usually be sought simultaneously with the technical peer-review process. As in all publishing decisions, the ultimate decision as to whether to publish is the responsibility of the editor of the journal concerned.