Submission Requirements 

• relevance to the journal’s aims and scope,
• clarity and coherence of writing (in American English),
• ethical compliance,
• completeness of submission files,
• similarity score and proper citation practices.

Detailed formatting requirements and strict APA 7 compliance are applied only after a manuscript is accepted for publication, as IJTES follows a free-format policy for initial submissions. Only manuscripts meeting these standards proceed to double-blind peer review conducted by at least two independent experts. Manuscripts must be fully anonymized before submission; identifying information must appear only on the Title Page.

Manuscript Preparation

General Standards and Free Format Policy

IJTES operates a free-format policy for initial submissions. At the first submission stage, authors may format their manuscripts in any consistent and readable structure, provided that the content is complete, clear, methodologically sound, and adheres to basic academic writing principles. Strict compliance with APA 7 style, detailed formatting requirements, table and figure layout rules, and technical specifications will be required only after the manuscript successfully passes peer review and is accepted for publication. To support authors who prefer additional guidance, IJTES also provides an optional manuscript template; its use is entirely voluntary and does not influence the review process or editorial decisions.

All manuscripts must be written in clear, precise, and grammatically correct American English. Authors are expected to ensure conceptual clarity, coherent argumentation, accurate reporting of methods, and transparency in analytical procedures. The recommended maximum length is 10,000 words, including references and appendices, and manuscripts must be submitted in an editable Word format.

Studies involving human participants require ethics committee approval. Ethical approval must be indicated both in the anonymized manuscript and on the Title Page. In the main manuscript, authors must provide an anonymized ethics statement (e.g., “This study was approved by an institutional ethics committee; approval number: XXX; approval date: XXX”) without naming the institution or including any identifying details, while the Title Page must include the full ethics information, including the name of the committee, approval date, and approval number. Authors must adhere to ethical principles regarding participant privacy, informed consent, and responsible data management. APA 7 style guidelines will apply to all components of the manuscript—headings, citations, references, tables, figures, and statistical notation—at the post-acceptance formatting stage, in accordance with the journal’s free-format policy for initial submissions.

Title Page

The Title Page must be submitted as a separate file and include the following elements:

• manuscript title
• authors’ full names, institutional affiliations, institutional e-mail addresses, and ORCID iDs
• corresponding author’s e-mail address and full mailing address
• CRediT author contribution statements (e.g., Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft)
• funding information (if applicable)
• conflict of interest declaration
• ethical compliance and approvals (name of committee, approval date, approval number)
• acknowledgments
• AI tools disclosure (detailing the specific tools used and the scope of their use)
• data availability statement

The Title Page is not shared with reviewers and must not appear in the blinded manuscript. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the statements provided on the Title Page (e.g., funding, conflicts of interest, ethics approval, AI disclosure, data availability, acknowledgments, and author contributions) will be published exactly as submitted. Authors are therefore expected to ensure that the wording of these statements is accurate, complete, and suitable for publication.

Main Manuscript File

The anonymized manuscript must contain no author names, affiliations, self-identifying citations, acknowledgments, or any information that may compromise the double-blind review process. Authors must ensure that the manuscript file and its metadata are fully anonymized prior to submission.

For initial submissions, IJTES allows a free-format structure; however, manuscripts should remain clearly organized and written in high-quality American English. After acceptance, manuscripts will be formatted according to the journal’s APA 7–based publication template. A typical manuscript should include the following sections:

• Title
• Abstract (150–250 words) summarizing the purpose, design, methods, key results, and implications
• Keywords (3–6 terms)
• Introduction, clearly defining the research problem, theoretical background, and contribution
• Methods, detailing participants, instruments, data collection, procedures, and analytical approach
• Findings/Results, with appropriate statistics, quotations, or evidence
• Discussion, interpreting findings in relation to existing literature
• Conclusion (optional but recommended), highlighting implications and future directions
• References
• Appendices, if necessary

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses must follow established reporting standards (e.g., PRISMA, MOOSE, or equivalent). Authors should provide a transparent description of search strategies, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and synthesis procedures to ensure methodological rigor and reproducibility.

References

All references must comply with APA 7. Authors must ensure:

• accuracy of bibliographic details,
• matching between in-text citations and reference list items,
• inclusion of DOIs where available,
• correct formatting of journal names, volumes, issues, and page ranges.

Incomplete or inaccurate references may delay the review process.

Tables

Tables should be formatted according to APA 7 guidelines. Tables must:

• be cited in the text before appearing,
• have clear, concise titles,
• use minimal horizontal lines and no vertical lines,
• include explanatory notes when necessary,
• use consistent decimal formatting.

Tables should appear immediately after the paragraph in which they are first mentioned to support readability.

Figures

Figures must be high resolution (minimum 300 dpi) and visually clear. Captions should describe the content succinctly. Figures must be cited in the text before their placement and appear immediately after first mention. Authors are responsible for obtaining permissions for copyrighted materials and ensuring figures can be interpreted in both color and grayscale.

Appendices and Supplementary Information

Appendices appear after the reference list and may include measurement tools, coding schemes, or technical details. Supplementary materials that cannot be embedded (e.g., large data files, audio/video materials) may be uploaded separately. Each appendix and supplementary file must be cited in the text and labeled clearly.

Research Data and Availability

A Data Availability Statement is required for all submissions. Authors must indicate:

• whether data are publicly available,
• available upon reasonable request,
• restricted due to ethical or legal considerations,
• or not applicable.
  

When possible, authors are encouraged to deposit data in recognized repositories. Regardless of public availability, authors must retain data for at least five years and provide access to editors or reviewers upon request, unless prohibited for ethical reasons.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must ensure that the manuscript reflects original, honest, and accurate research. Ethical responsibilities include:

• avoiding plagiarism, duplication, text recycling, data manipulation, and undisclosed conflicts of interest,
• ensuring accurate and complete reporting of methods and findings,
• crediting all sources appropriately,
• restricting authorship to contributors who meet CRediT roles,
• respecting confidentiality of participant information,
• providing ethics approval documentation when required,
• cooperating with corrections, retractions, or other editorial actions if errors or ethical concerns arise.

Use of Artificial Intelligence Tools

Authors must disclose any use of AI tools on the Title Page, specifying the tool and the extent of its use. AI may assist with language refinement, basic structuring, or similar limited tasks. AI tools must not generate substantive content, arguments, interpretations, data, or references. AI cannot meet authorship criteria. Authors remain fully responsible for verifying all AI-assisted content for accuracy and integrity. 

Submission Process

How to Submit

Submissions are made through the DergiPark system. Authors must upload the Title Page, blinded manuscript, ethics approval (when required), and any supplementary materials. Submissions that do not meet technical or ethical requirements are returned without review.

Mandatory Files

Required submission components are:

1. Title Page (unblinded)
2. Main Manuscript (blinded)
3. Ethics committee approval document (when required)
4. Supplementary files (optional)

PRISMA flowcharts or checklists should be included for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses.

Similarity Screening

All manuscripts undergo a similarity check. Appropriate citation and paraphrasing are expected. As a general guideline, the journal expects manuscripts to remain below 20% overall similarity (references excluded). Manuscripts with high or unexplained similarity may be returned for revision or rejected. Self-plagiarism is also evaluated.

After Acceptance

After acceptance, manuscripts undergo language review, formatting based on the IJTES template, and author proofing. A DOI is assigned, and the article is released online. Only minor corrections are allowed during proofing. Once page numbers and the DOI are finalized, the article becomes the version of record.

Open Access and Licensing

IJTES operates under a Diamond Open Access model, charging no fees at any stage. Articles published from 2023 onward are licensed under CC BY 4.0, allowing broad reuse with attribution. Authors retain copyright and may archive preprint, postprint, and published versions, provided that the DOI of the version of record is included.