Acta Odontologica Turcica

The new Aim & Scope of the journal has been published here on 27 April 2021.

Aim

Acta Odontologica Turcica is a national/regional journal aiming:

1) to promote dentistry and dental research in Turkey,

2) to integrate Turkish dental science into the current global dental science frame.

Scope

The scope includes:

* Clinical science related to dentistry,

* Epidemiology studies related to dentistry,

* Basic laboratory science related to dentistry,

* Submissions from non-Turkish authors are also welcome.

Studies concerning the awareness, attitude or level of knowledge of people (students, patients, dentists, etc.) have low editorial priority in this journal (unless valid and reliable scales are used).

Type of articles

We seek to reach the aims mentioned above through publishing scientifically sound, good quality original research articles. Letter to the Editor is particularly encouraged. We do not accept Case Reports as of 13 October 2020.

Author Guidelines

General Information

Manuscripts sent for publication must not have been published previously, accepted for publication, or be under consideration elsewhere. Abstracts presented in scientific meetings must be indicated. 

It is in the authors’ responsibility to obtain permission from the copyright owner in case the article contains a copyright material; and this must be indicated in the article. 

In this journal, original research articles are published. 'Letter to the Editor' is also welcome.

Any concept stated in a published paper belongs to and is in the responsibility of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Editors and the Editorial Board. 

Ethical issues are addressed on the Ethical Principles page.

Review Process

In this journal, double-blind peer review system is adopted; the reviewer is unaware of the identity of the author, and the author is also unaware of the identity of the reviewer. For the details of the manuscript review process see the Publication Policy page.

Language

Submissions can be in either Turkish or English. For broader readership, submissions in English are encouraged.

For submissions in the English language, prior to the acceptance of the manuscript, our language editors will be consulted for the appropriateness of the language. If the language editors see it necessary, authors will need to get their manuscript checked by a professional language editing company for grammatical/linguistic errors, obtain a certificate for the work done, and present it to the editors. Authors may ask the editors about language editing company recommendations.

Manuscript Preparation

A useful guide regarding the general principles of 'manuscript preparation' can be found in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) link. Together with these principles, specific points on preparing for submission and sending the submission are given below.

The parts of a standard manuscript (original research article) include: title page, abstract page, introduction, materials and method, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgments, references, figure legends, tables, and figures 

Letter to the editor includes only a text body composed under an appropriate title and references. 

It is preferable that the presentation of original research articles is designed in accordance with trial reporting guidelines: CONSORT for randomized controlled clinical trials, STROBE for observational studies, and STARD for diagnostic studies. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/research_report_guide.html) 

The manuscript must be written according to the technical standards described below:

* Use Microsoft Word program and the font Times New Roman,12 pt.

* Use 1.5 line-spacing throughout the text.

* Use first-line indent for each paragraph.

* Number the pages consecutively at the mid-bottom of the page.

* Use italic characters when citing terms in Latin or species names (e.g. in vitro, Staphylococcus aureus).

* Report units and abbreviations according to The International System of Units, (SI; http://www.bipm.org/en/si/), where appropriate. Examples to abbreviations for commonly used units are: year-yr, week-wk, day-d, hour-h, minute-min, second-s, gram-g, liter-L, microliter-µL, meter-m, degrees Celsius-°C, etc. Turkish-writing authors should check the web site of Türk Dil Kurumu for an index of abbreviations (Kısaltmalar Dizini, TDK; http://www.tdk.gov.tr/).

* Use a period (.) as the decimal mark and leave a space between the digits and the unit (e.g. 12.3 mm, 4.5 kg/cm2, 37.2 °C). When writing percentage, do not put a space between the value and the percent sign (e.g. 0.2%).

* The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parenthesis must be used on first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement, and the same abbreviation must be used throughout the text.

* Specify the source of the material/equipment used in the study on first-mention (name, manufacturer, city, state -if applicable- and country, in parentheses). E.g. ‘Root canals were filled with X-Fill-Canal (X-Dental, Ankara, Turkey)’. No need to mention the source on subsequent references to the same product. When mentioning another product manufactured by the same company, it is sufficient to cite the company only. E.g. ‘The access cavity was then filled with X-Fill-Cavity (X-Dental)’. 

Title page

The title page should consist of the following:

1. The title of the article (in both English and Turkish for Turkish-speaking authors)

2. Full names of the authors including academic degrees. The institutional affiliation of the authors (including city and country) must be given just below the names row, relating to a superscript number indicated after the surname

3. ORCID identifiers of the authors (at least the submitting author). You can get one or check yours at https://orcid.org/

4. Contact information of the corresponding author (mailing address, office phone, and cell phone numbers and e-mail address)

5. A running title not exceeding 40 characters

6. Type of the article (original research article, letter to the editor)

7. Number of words separately in the abstract and the main text (excluding figure legend, table heading, and references), and number of references, figures, and tables

8. Funding source (specify also the grant number, protocol number, etc.)

9. Conflict of interest statement. It may read: ‘No author of this article has a conflict of interest, including specific financial interests, relationships, and/or affiliations relevant to the subject matter or materials included in the manuscript’. If this is not the case, any conflict of interest must be specified; for example: ‘Author A owns stock in X company, Author B has received, within 2 years, consulting fees from Y company that manufactures a competing product to the one discussed in this article’, etc.

10. Acknowledgements (may include, for example, any previous presentation of the article in full reference, any non-author contributor of the article, etc.)

11. Provide the ethical review board information (full name, approval date, and number) here and in the text. Upload the digital copy of the approval document to the system during submission.

12. Clinical trial registration information including registration site (e.g. clinicaltrials.gov), registration number, date of registration and internet link (recommended)

Abstract and keywords

The abstract must accurately reflect what is included in the article and must not include information that does not appear in the body of the paper. Concisely state the aim of the study, basic procedures, main findings, and principal conclusions drawn from the study. The abstract must be structured using the headings: Objective, Materials and Method, Results and Conclusion for research articles, and Introduction, Case Report and Conclusion for case reports.

Abstract and keywords must be provided in both English and Turkish (for Turkish-speaking authors). Keywords should be selected from the Medical Subject Headings (MESH; www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html) and Türkiye Bilim Terimleri (TBT; http://www.bilimterimleri.com), the corresponding MeSH index in Turkish, and should be listed in alphabetical order, and separated with a semicolon (;). Keywords should not be chosen from the title and the abstract, since those are automatically indexed; instead, should be chosen from the text. 

Introduction

Explain the nature of the problem and its significance. Provide only directly pertinent references, and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported. Do not discuss the findings of related studies, unless they are not contributing to construct the hypothesis. Clearly state the aim of the study in the last paragraph of the section, and give the research hypothesis, where applicable. 

Materials and method

Describe materials, subjects, and procedures in sufficient detail so that others can reproduce the results. Identify the source of the material or equipment used (name, product number, and batch, manufacturer, city, and country, in parentheses). Give references to established methods or describe new or modified methods. 

Describe the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the selection of the observational or experimental participants (patients or laboratory animals, including controls), also describe the source population.

Ethical issues should be mentioned in this section (full name of the Ethics Committee from which the approval was obtained, approval date, and approval number should be written). If applicable, indicate that informed consent has been obtained.

In the last paragraph of the materials and method section, describe in sufficient detail the statistical analysis, if applicable.

Statistical power analysis: results for determining the sample size for prospective studies (software used, type I error value, power value, effect size, how the effect size is determined, which statistical test is taken into account), and the actual power value for retrospective studies should be given.

Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols. Specify the computer software used. It is recommended that the authors consult a statistician for the analysis of their data.

Results

Present the results of the study in this section. For convenience, the results section may have subheadings. Tables, graphs, or illustrations may be used when necessary; but avoid repeats. Present only the direct findings; do not include subjective comments or references to previous literature. 

Discussion

Discuss the findings of the study here. This is the only proper section to include subjective comments. Avoid repetition of the information given in the Introduction and Results sections. It is a good start to briefly summarize the most important findings of the study in the first paragraph. Indicate the strengths and weaknesses/limitations of the study, compare the results of the present study with previous ones, indicate similarities and discrepancies, and explore possible mechanisms and explanations. Emphasize the place and importance of the study in the context of the current state of science, discuss the generalizability of results to other clinical settings or populations, and discuss the implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice. 

Conclusion

Briefly state the basic message of the study. The conclusion should be consistent with the aim and practically should include the answer to what has been sought in the study. Do not include statistical details of the study. Include only the direct conclusions drawn from the study. 

References

Labeling citations in AOT is according to the Vancouver system; references are numbered consecutively in the order of appearance in the text and identified by Arabic numerals in superscript. 

The titles of journals must be abbreviated according to the style used in the list of Journals Indexed for MEDLINE, posted by the U.S. National Library of Medicine on the Library's web site. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals)

References to (personal communication) and (unpublished observation) are permitted in the text, but not in the reference list. In these cases, written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source person is required; and must be included on submission. 

References to papers accepted but not yet published must be designated as (forthcoming) and written permission and confirmation of accuracy as well as verification of the acceptance for publication is again required and must be included on submission. 

Examples of citing in the text:

...was found in a previous study.¹

…was found in previous studies.^2,4-6,8

In a recent study by Akal,⁹ it was found that…

In a recent study by Akal & Bala,¹⁰ it was found that…

In a recent study by Akal et al.,¹¹ it was found that… 

For the reference list, follow the style set out in the examples below. For those not found in this list, see the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ sample references list. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html) 

Standard journal article

1. Darendeliler N, Dinçer M, Soylu R. The biomechanical relationship between incisor and condylar guidances in deep bite and normal cases. J Oral Rehabil 2004;31:430-7. 

Standard journal article with more than six authors

2. Tüter G, Kurtiş B, Serdar M, Aykan T, Okyay K, Yücel A, et al. Effects of scaling and root planing and sub-antimicrobial dose doxycycline on oral and systemic biomarkers of disease in patients with both chronic periodontitis and coronary artery disease. J Clin Periodontol 2007;34:673-81. 

Organization as author

3. European Society of Endodontology. Quality guidelines for endodontic treatment: consensus report of the European Society of Endodontology. Int Endod J 2006;39:921-30.

Dissertation, thesis

4. Kayaoğlu G. Investigation of infection and survival mechanisms held by Enterococcus faecalis (strain A197A): with respect to endodontic disease [thesis]. Ankara: Gazi University; 2007. 

Books and other monographs

Personal author(s)

5. van Noort R. Introduction to dental materials. 2nd ed. London: Mosby Elsevier; 2002. 

Chapter in a book

6. Metzger Z, Basrani B, Goodis HE. Instruments, materials and devices. In: Hargreaves KM, Cohen S, editors. Cohen's pathways of the pulp. 10th ed. St. Louis: Mosby; 2011. p. 223-82.

ISO standards

7. International Standards Organization. Dentistry: root canal sealing materials. ISO6876. International Standards Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; 2001.

Figures and tables

All figures (photographs, graphs, drawings, etc) and tables must be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals according to the order they appear in the text.

Figures must be in JPG, PNG, PDF, or TIFF formats, and must be of good quality. All figures must be submitted both in the manuscript (submission file) and as separate files (supplementary files). In the manuscript, the figures must be given at the end of the text, after the References section (together with their legends).

In case the manuscript contains images of persons, written permission for their use must be obtained and submitted with the manuscript. 

Tables should be prepared by using the table facility of most word processors. When preparing a new table, the table format in previously published articles in AOT may be taken as example. A table heading must be added on top of the table and uploaded together. Explanatory material including abbreviations, statistical information (statistical analysis method, p values, etc) must be given in footnotes placed under the table, not in the table heading. An asterisk or superscript letter may be used where appropriate. Tables, like Figures, must be placed in the text, after the References section.

Limits for articles

Word count limits and allowed number of references for each article type has been overviewed in the table given below:

Manuscript Submission

The procedure will be carried out simply by following the steps on the Online Submissions page. 

Submission file: must include abstract, main text, references, figures/figure legends, tables/table headings all in one Word file. For a double-blind review, the Submission file must not reveal the identities of the authors.

The cover letter, title page, original figure files, and other possible documents must be uploaded separately in the next step.

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

1. The manuscript has been prepared according to the structural and bibliographic standards specified in the Author Guidelines.

2. In the cover letter, the originality of the article and ethical considerations have been mentioned and a conflict of interest disclosure has been made. It has been signed by one author on behalf of all authors.

3. The submission file is a single Word file including the title, abstract, text body, references, figures/figure legends, tables/table headings.

4. Supplementary files: cover letter, title page, original figure files, and any possible document

5. The authors' identities have not been revealed in the Submission file.

6. For submissions in English language, on acceptance of the manuscript (or at a review stage marked by the editors) the manuscript must be submitted to a professional language editing company for grammatical/linguistic check and a certificate for the work done must be presented to the editors.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

·         Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

·         Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.

·         Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Privacy Statement

The names and e-mail addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

AOT mainly concerns the promotion of dentistry in Turkey (see: Aim & Scope for the details). The intended population is mainly those involved in the dental profession, including researchers, dentists, dental educators, and students.

This journal does not charge any money under article processing or submission. No Article Processing Charge (APC) or fee is required in this journal.

The journal provides article-download statistics for the published articles in their relevant metadata pages.

The journal has been indexed by TÜBİTAK/ULAKBİM National Database (TR Dizin), Türkiye Citation Index, Turk Medline, Sherpa/Romeo, Ebsco, CrossRef, J-Gate, Google Scholar, OpenAire, ProQuest, and DOAJ, and credited by TDB Continual Dental Medicine Education High Commission.

Ethical Review Board Approval

In this journal, institutional ethics committee / ethical review board approval is required for all kinds of research using human subjects, human-derived material, and data (including extracted teeth). Informed consent signed by the patient is also required, where applicable. Concerning the medical research involving human subjects, AOT adheres to the ethical principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki.

For studies using animals, AOT seeks the approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. It is recommended that the animals are treated according to the National Research Council’s Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12910) 

Review Process

Provided that manuscripts comply with the manuscript preparation guidelines, they go through a reviewing process:

The manuscript is first seen by the Editor-in-Chief and/or the Editor (1). If the content or the quality of the manuscript is not suitable for this journal, the manuscript may be rejected at this stage immediately.

Depending on the topic, the manuscript may be consulted to an Editorial Board member for eligibility and consideration for further scientific evaluation (the list is provided in the Journal Cover and on the Journal website) (2).

If the manuscript is not recommended for review by the consulted Editorial Board member, the reasons why the manuscript was rejected are passed on to the author.

If the manuscript is recommended for review by the consulted Editorial Board member, first, it is checked by the Statistical Editor for the appropriateness of the statistical analyses (3), then by the Technical Editor for the technical standardization (4). Afterward, an editor is assigned to carry out the scientific evaluation process (Editor-in-Chief or Editor or Associate-Editor).

At this stage, the manuscript is sent to at least two blinded-peer-reviewers chosen by the assigned editor (5). The reviewers give recommendations to the editor as ‘accept the article as it is’, ‘minor or major revisions required’, or ‘reject’. In case there is a disagreement between reviewers, the manuscript may be sent to (an) extra reviewer(s). The article can be published only after the required revisions are fulfilled by the author. However, taking into consideration the recommendations of the reviewers, the final decision belongs to the editor.

Note that a double-blind peer review system is adopted in this journal; the reviewers and the author remain anonymous to each other.



‘Conflict of interest’ and our management policies

According to the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) the definition and scope of conflict of interest (COI) are as follows: “In the context of medical publishing, COI exists when a participant in the publication process (author, peer reviewer, or editor) has a competing interest that could unduly influence (or be reasonably seen to do so) his or her responsibilities in the publication process. Among those responsibilities are academic honesty, unbiased conduct and reporting of research, and integrity of decisions or judgments. The publication process includes the submission of manuscripts, peer review, editorial decisions, and communication between authors, reviewers, and editors”.

Various types of COI may exist. The most frequently seen types of COI include: financial ties, academic commitments, personal relationships, political or religious beliefs, and institutional affiliations (http://wame.org/conflict-of-interest-in-peer-reviewed-medical-journals). The existence of COI for particular submission does not necessarily mean that the article cannot be published in the journal, but requires effective management and that the Editors let readers know of it. In this journal, conflict of interest disclosure is obligatory.

Evaluation of a manuscript when a personal relationship exists (work partnership, friendship, superior-subordinate relationship, etc)
This is the most frequently encountered COI type in our journal. In this case, the Editor, having the COI, withdraws from the editorial process (WAME; abstaining from decisions where COI might arise).

Then, another editor (Editor-in-Chief, or Editor, or Associate Editor) who has no COI in that particular case takes over and carries out the routine editorial process.

In case all Editors have COI, the manuscript is consulted double-blinded to an Editorial Board member for eligibility. If the Editorial Board member does not recommend further evaluation of the manuscript, a rejection letter undersigned as ‘Editorial Board’ is delivered to the author. However, if the Editorial Board member recommends further evaluation of the manuscript, an editor is assigned, and the manuscript is taken to scientific evaluation. The final decision is given based on the reviewers’ recommendations. For an “accept” decision, positive recommendations of all or most of the reviewers are required, and the vice versa for a “reject” decision.



Evaluations of submissions from the Editor-in-Chief, the Editor or the Associate Editors
In this journal, the editors are actively involved in research, and all are potential authors. In case, one of the authors in a submission is the editor of this journal, then that person is excluded from the editorial process for that particular submission, and cannot attend editorial board meetings concerning their submission (WAME; exclusion of those with COI from the process; e.g., reviewer or editor).

In this case, the manuscript is consulted double-blinded to an Editorial Board member for eligibility. If the Editorial Board member does not recommend further evaluation of the manuscript, a rejection letter undersigned as ‘Editorial Board’ is delivered to the author. On the other hand, if the Editorial Board member recommends further evaluation of the manuscript, an editor is assigned, and the manuscript is taken to scientific evaluation. The final decision is given based on the reviewers’ recommendations. For an “accept” decision, positive recommendations of all or most of the reviewers are required, and the vice versa for a “reject” decision.



Publication Frequency

This journal is published 3 times per year.

The order of the publication of the articles is decided according to the date of the acceptance.



Open Access Policy

The journal is Open Access according to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition. By this we mean that the journal's articles have "free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself."



Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Acta Odontologica Turcica aims to carry out the publishing task to high standards. This requires a universally accepted set of ethical principles to be adopted as the starting point. In this sense, our main reference is the Guidance (Flowcharts & Guidelines) published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Corrections, Retractions, and Editorial Expressions of Concern

Corrections: In case a mistake not grossly affecting the findings is detected in published material (e.g. incorrect authors list, a missing image, a wrongly presented formula), a correction will be published in the next issue. The correction will be in the form of an Erratum (for author’s error) or a Corrigendum (for publisher’s error). Erratum and Corrigendum will be published on a numbered page and listed in the Issue Content list and will cite the original paper.

Retractions: If there is a big scientific mistake that would affect the conclusions of the article or infringement of professional ethical codes, the article can be retracted by the Editor and/or author. These mistakes include, but are not limited to, multiple submission, redundant publication, plagiarism, data fabrication, honest error (e.g. calculation errors, experimental errors). In this case, a retraction note with a page number will be published in the next issue with a title: “Retraction: [article title]”. This note will be listed in the Issue Content list. The text of the retraction will explain why the article is being retracted and will give a link to the original article. The original pdf article will be retained on the journal’s website, but a watermark reading ‘Retracted’ will be added on each page of the article.        

For submissions under review or accepted but not published articles, authors can ask for a retraction. In this case, a request letter explaining the reason for retraction, agreed and signed by all authors must be sent to the Editor-in-Chief.

Expression of Concern: An editorial Expression of Concern can be published in the journal if there are well-grounded concerns about the contents of a published article, and the editor wants to warn readers of potentially misleading information contained in it.

Article removal: Exceptionally, due to conditions such as defamation, infringement of others’ legal rights, court orders, serious health risks that the article content might pose, etc., an article can be removed from the online database. In this case, the title and authors’ names (the metadata) will be retained on the web page, and a notification will be placed indicating that the article has been removed for legal reasons.



Plagiarism Check

In this journal, manuscripts are controlled for plagiarism (iThenticate) at the pre-review stage.



Appeals

Authors may submit a formal appeal for rejected submissions (e.g. if they believe that a technical error was made during review, or a pertinent point was misunderstood/overlooked by the reviewers, etc). Appeal letters must be electronically sent to: gudisdergi@gazi.edu.tr. The editorial office is the only address for the appeals, and no means of communication other than e-mail is allowed. The authors must provide detailed reasons for the appeal and point-by-point responses to the reviewers' and/or Editor's comments. At this point, a revised manuscript must not be sent.


Decisions on appeals are final without exception. Priority is given to new submissions, so the appeal process may take longer than the original submission process.



Inquiries

Any inquiry regarding the editorial process should be directed in written form to the Editorial Board through e-mail: gudisdergi@gazi.edu.tr

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