General Writing Guidelines

Original articles should not exceed 3500 words, short reports 1500 words, reviews and systematic reviews 4000 words, and letters to the editor 1000 words. The font should be Times New Roman, 9 point, with a line spacing of 1; the text should be in two columns, with page margins set at 2 cm on the left and right and 2.5 cm at the top and bottom. All headings should be unnumbered; first-level headings (INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION, and REFERENCES) should be in all caps, bold, and left-aligned. Second-level headings should have the first letter capitalized, bold, and left-aligned; third-level headings should have the first letter capitalized, italicized, and left-aligned. Underlining should not be used (italics or bold should be preferred if emphasis is required); all paragraphs should start left-aligned and without indentation after headings; the body text should be justified. There should be no space before a period, but one space after; there should be no space before a comma, and only one space between words. A decimal point should be used, and decimals should be given to two decimal places (e.g., 38.53%; 13.25±1.34). There should be no space between the percent sign and the number; in Turkish texts, the percent sign should be before the number, and in English texts, it should be after the number (e.g., %38.5 / 38.5%). Spaces inside and outside parentheses, quotation marks, and slashes must be error-free.Bullet points should be used instead of numbers. Statistical symbols should not be italicized (p, X±SS, F, t, z, R/r, etc.). Page numbers should be at the bottom of the page, right-aligned, in Times New Roman 10 point.

Title Page

The full Turkish and English titles of the article should not exceed 12 words each; abbreviated titles should not exceed 4 words each; the first letter of each word in the titles should be capitalized, and the text should be written in 12-point font. Full Turkish and English titles should be provided; titles should be bold, left-aligned, and should not contain abbreviations. The title page should follow the template; authors' names, titles, institutional addresses, and ORCID numbers (in the form of a full link starting with https://) should be included. The corresponding author's email, phone number, and mailing address should be provided; the similarity ratio, acknowledgments, conflict of interest statement, author contributions, ethics committee information (committee name, date, and number), and institutional/financial support statement should be clearly stated. For works previously presented as papers, the location and date of the presentation and any financial supporters should be indicated on the title page.

Abstracts

In research and review articles, the Turkish abstract should be no more than 200 words, and in short reports, no more than 150 words. Abstracts should be in 9-point font, with the word “ÖZ/ABSTRACT” aligned to the left and in bold. The abstract paragraph should start flush left, without indentation. In research articles, the abstract should include the subheadings Objective, Materials and Methods, Results, Conclusion, and Keywords (in English articles), and these subheadings should be written with the first letter capitalized, in bold, and flush left. No references should be cited in the abstract. There should be 3–5 keywords in Turkish and English; they should be selected from MeSH and the Turkish Science Terminology Dictionary; the first letter of each word should be capitalized, commas should be used between them, and a period should be used after the last keyword (e.g., Keywords: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Public Health).

Main Text and Sections

The main text should begin on a new page after the abstract. In research articles, the text should consist of the following sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References; in review articles, the structure should be Introduction, Expansion, Conclusion, and References.

Introduction

The purpose of the study and/or research question/hypothesis should be clearly stated.

Materials and Methods

This section should include the type of research, location and time of the research, population/sample, variables, data collection tools, procedures/interventions (if any), data collection, statistical analysis, and ethical aspects of the research, with appropriate subheadings. Ethics committee/institution approval (committee name, date, and number) and consent obtained from individuals (written/verbal) should be indicated, and an appropriate reporting guideline (e.g., CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA) should be followed.

Results

Descriptive statistics (e.g., mean, standard deviation, number, percentage) with test values (t, F, r, etc.) and p-values should be clearly reported; where possible, the exact value should be given instead of p<0.05 (e.g., p=0.031). When writing Cronbach's Alpha (α), correlation coefficients (r), and p-values, a “0” should be used before the decimal point; p should be given to three decimal places, and alpha and r to two decimal places (e.g., r=0.34, p=0.001). A space should be left before and after the symbols “=, >, <, ±”.

Tables

Tables should be placed in appropriate locations within the text and referenced within the text. The table title should be written above the table, left-aligned, in 10-point bold font with the first letter of the first word capitalized; single line spacing should be used. A period should be used in the format “Table 1.”; colons should not be used. There should be one line space between the table and the title; the second line of the title should also start on the left. When writing percentages, do not repeat “percent (%)” in the same place; use either “%” or “Percent”. Tables should be written in at least 8-point font, footnotes in 9-point font; table numbers should be included; bold font may be used for cells that need to be emphasized. All cell borders should be distinct; vertical and horizontal lines and solid borders should be used; explanations should be provided in 8-point font with a line spacing below the table; if there is more than one footnote, symbols such as “*” or “**” should be used.

Graph/Figure/Image

Each visual should have a sequence number and a title below it. Titles should be left-aligned, 10 point, with the first letter of the first word capitalized and bold. Visuals should be placed in appropriate sections within the text; sources should be cited for those taken from other sources. There should be one line space between the image and its caption; the second line of the caption should start at the left margin. The number of tables/figures/graphs/images should be limited to a maximum of six; abbreviations and explanations should be provided below the image in 9-point font using symbols such as “*”, “**”, or “a, b”. All necessary copyright permissions must be obtained for all images.

Discussion

Findings should be interpreted in light of the literature, using a descriptive and analytical discussion approach, and compared with previous studies; after the discussion, “Limitations and strengths of the study” should be stated under a separate heading.

Conclusions and Statements

The conclusions section should summarize the main findings without repeating the findings and present evidence-based recommendations. This should be followed by acknowledgments, a conflict of interest statement, author contributions (planning-design; materials-methods; data analysis-interpretation; writing-editing), institutional/financial support statement, and ethics committee approval (committee name, date, and number).

References – In-Text Citations

All works cited in the text must be included in the reference list, and all works listed in the reference list must be cited in the text. In-text citations should be in accordance with APA style; they should be listed alphabetically by author's last name, in parentheses, and separated by semicolons (e.g., Bradley, 2000; Davis and Fitch, 2004; Wolchik, 2001). Multiple works by the same author in the same year should be indicated as (Spring, 2009a, 2009b); works in different years should be indicated as (Spring, 2008, 2009). Single-authored sources (Bradley, 2003), two-authored sources (Bradley and Calhoun, 2004), three to five authors should be listed in full on first use (Bradley, Calhoun, Davis, and Fitch, 2004), abbreviated as “et al.” on subsequent use (Bradley et al., 2004), and listed directly for six or more authors (Bradley et al., 2004). When an institution/group is the author, the full name and abbreviation should be used together in the first citation, and only the abbreviation and year should be used in subsequent citations (e.g., first citation: Turkish Psychological Association [TPD], 1997; repeat: TPD, 1997). Initials should be added for different authors with the same last name (e.g., R. D. Luce, 1959; P. A. Luce, 1986). In Turkish texts, “and” should be replaced with ‘ve’; in sentences, “ve ark.” should be replaced with “ve arkadaşları”; in English articles, “et al.” should be used for multiple authors or repeated use (e.g., Davis et al., 2001).

References – List

The References section should be formatted at the end of the text in 9-point font with single line spacing, justified to both sides. Multiple works by the same author should be listed in chronological order. Journal titles should be italicized and written in full; words in journal titles should be written without abbreviations and with capitalized initial letters; only the first word of article titles should be capitalized. If available, the DOI should be added after the page number in the format “https://doi.org/...”. Books, book chapters, electronic sources, conference presentations, works by the same author in the same year (a/b), single- and multi-authored books, and institutional reports should be written according to APA rules; institution/group names should be written in full. Secondary references should be indicated with the phrase “Cited in ...”; for translated books, the translator's information and the original publication year should be added; for theses, the university, institute, and city information should be included.

You can access the article writing template regarding writing rules at the link below.

https://www.esenyurt.edu.tr/icerik/2552-yazim-kurallari-makale-yazim-dizayni