Natural Metabolites from Clinacanthus nutans as Promising SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors: Insights from Molecular Docking and Dynamics Simulations

The article writing rules for JOTCSA are fairly simple and are explained in the article template below. Downloading the article template file is highly recommended. Most of the issues are outlined in the template file. 

Please note that we have adopted a new heading system with numbers, starting from 10(1). Please check the article template below.

A CHANGE IS ANNOUNCED TO ALL USERS OF JOTCSA, EFFECTIVE ON JULY 03, 2023

The JOTCSA editorship has decided to take some precautions for the well-being of the journal and their users.
It has recently been decided that the article file will contain all figures and tables in their original positions. In addition, upload the images and tables in your article embedded into a Microsoft Word or Libreoffice Writer document.
 

0) Please do not write your author names and institutions in the main manuscript file. Instead, prepare another file like Title Page.docx and deposit the names, e-mails, ORCID numbers, and Acknowledgments there. 

1) All figures, schemes and tables should be in a proper format. Images might be tagged image format, TIF (with LZW compression), and portable network graphics, PNG (maximum compression). A freeware software named Irfanview, available at https://www.irfanview.com, can simply create TIF or PNG images for you. Firstly, try right-clicking on an image present in your word-processor file and saving as an image file. 
 

2) You may choose from Microsoft Word .DOC/.DOCX version and Libreoffice Writer .ODT version. 
 

3) A common problem: Please make the numbers and orders of authors in your article stay the SAME at all times. Double check your authors and their orders when you are ready to submit your article. There has been much debate and please do NOT add or remove authors nor change their orders.
 

4) Please do not submit your works if you have not declared your reviewer suggestion forms. If it is, by any way, not possible to suggest reviewers at the submission stage, please do not forget to upload the suggestion forms to the Files tab. Also important is that reviewers working in the same department of the author will not accepted and therefore cannot be suggested. Additionally, you cannot select two reviewers working at the same department.
 

5) Kindly direct your queries about the state of your manuscripts to the section editor. They control the flow of the manuscript, so they know better about it. 

Please do not hesitate to contact the managing editor at jotcsa@turchemsoc.org for anything else you wonder about publishing your paper.

Additional Information of the Guide for the Authors, for Journal of the Turkish Chemical Society, Section A: Chemistry (JOTCSA)

The journal management recommends that all authors (not only the corresponding author) register to ORCID at https://orcid.org/register and get a free ORCID ID. The registration process takes about only a couple of minutes. The corresponding author will complete the document of ORCID ID and e-mail addresses for editorial use. CTRL-clicking on the ORCID image next to the author name will enable the reader to view the ORCID profile of the given author. Please also note that you may not give the same ORCID ID to one or more authors in your article.

We prefer that the authors use "Zotero" (https://www.zotero.org/, free of charge) or "Endnote" (https://www.endnote.com/, commercial), or similar online software like Mendeley (https://www.mendeley.com/?interaction_required=true, free of charge), for the generation of bibliographic list and citations. We are using the "Vancouver" citation style, which is available in all softwares mentioned above. After preparation of the article, please use the "convert citations to text" feature of the reference manager you use. 
 

We are using Intihal.net (formerly, we used iThenticate) plagiarism software and our maximum allowed score for the document is, depending on the conditions of the article,  about 20-25%. We look at the document and if we see a pattern of plagiarism, we return the document. If not, we continue the process. In cases with high similarity, it is recommended that the author works with article editing firms to lower the score. In this case, a language editing certificate is handy. A single similarity index cannot be higher than 5%, please reduce the similarity of a given entity less than 5%.

Please do not submit PDF copies of your articles for preliminary control. We accept Microsoft Word DOC, Microsoft Word DOCX, and LibreOffice ODT. We directly work on the manuscript, forming changes that are trackable.

Please do not submit your work again from the very beginning, if the management requires that you prepare a revision. Just browse to your existing submission and use the upload module to upload the newer version. If you are stuck, please send the revised article with an e-mail to the managing editor at jotcsa@turchemsoc.org.

Our journal will use, beginning from 10(1), a manual heading-based system with numbers, like 1. INTRODUCTION, 2.1. Materials and Methods, etc. More information will be found in the template file.

You may download the article templates, depending on your word processor, from the link below. Kindly recall that we do not have any LaTeX templates for now:
 

📝 article_template_word.docx 
(please contact the editorial office at jotcsa@turchemsoc.org for open document, ODT, form of this file). 

📝 APC_CONSENT_FORM.docx 

*Potential reviewer recommendation form 

Reaction schemes usually used for reactions and related material will use Arial or Verdana, preferably at 9 or 10 points, inside the figures. Our journal recommends that authors use "Chemdraw" or "ChemSketch" or "MarvinSketch" softwares. Directly pasting from the drawing application into the word processor software is NOT recommended. Please use the "paste special" feature to paste it as a metafile image.

Citing: Our journal uses a number-based reference system, and the number is given in normal parenthesis like (17). Other examples include (1-3, 17), (1-3, 17, 19-21), etc. The above-mentioned reference managers have the required tools to create citations in the text. When inserting a new paragraph, the manager will safely rearrange the citations, refreshing the numbers. 

For presentation of proton or carbon nuclear magnetic resonance data, please see the article template above.

The words Scheme 1, Figure 1, etc., will have a full stop at the end of the caption. The caption text will be centered on the page.

Supplementary information: The authors are encouraged to use supplementary information, for detailing the study with spectral data, crystal structure refinement data, and other types of material should you recommend including. All types of synthetic procedures will be included in the main text. Supplementary files will be added as a new file by the editors.

Usage of the units: The units will be, where possible, SI-based and the style g/mL will be preferred over g.mL-1. Please do not mix these two and apply consistency throughout the manuscript about using the units.

1. Publication Ethics

The Journal of the Turkish Chemical Society Section A: Chemistry (JOTCSA) is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and follows the principles and best practice guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). All parties involved in the publication process—including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher—are expected to adhere to these ethical standards.

The journal does not tolerate plagiarism, data fabrication, data falsification, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, or any other form of research or publication misconduct. Suspected ethical violations are handled in accordance with COPE guidelines.

2. Editorial Responsibilities

The Editor-in-Chief has overall responsibility for the editorial management of the journal. Manuscripts are assigned to Section Editors (please see the Editorial Board page for details), who oversee the peer-review process and make recommendations based solely on scientific merit.

Editors evaluate submissions objectively without discrimination based on race, gender, nationality, institutional affiliation, or personal beliefs. Editorial decisions are based on originality, scientific quality, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, and relevance to the journal's scope.

Editors maintain the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and avoid handling manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest.

3. Author Responsibilities

Authors are responsible for submitting original research that has not been published previously and is not under consideration elsewhere.

All listed authors must have made substantial scientific contributions to the work and approve the final version of the manuscript before submission.

Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the data presented and must disclose any financial or non-financial conflicts of interest. Any errors identified after publication should be reported promptly to the editorial office.

4. Reviewer Responsibilities

Reviewers provide independent, objective, and constructive evaluations of submitted manuscripts.

Reviewers should accept review invitations only when they have the appropriate expertise and can complete the review within the requested timeframe. Manuscripts under review must be treated as confidential documents.

Reviewers should disclose any potential conflicts of interest and decline the review if such conflicts could affect their impartiality.

5. Peer Review Process

JOTCSA operates a double-blind external peer-review system.

Following an initial editorial screening, each manuscript is assigned by the Editor-in-Chief to a Section Editor, who manages the peer-review process.

The Section Editor invites at least two independent external reviewers with expertise in the manuscript's subject areas. Reviewers are selected based on their scientific expertise and must have no conflicts of interest with the authors. Reviewers are not selected from the same institution as the corresponding author whenever possible.

The Section Editor oversees the review process but does not normally act as a reviewer. Editorial decisions are based on reviewers' reports, the editor's evaluation, and the scientific quality of the manuscript.

Possible editorial decisions include:

• Accept
• Minor Revision
• Major Revision
• Reject

6. Research Ethics (Human & Animal Studies)

Research involving human participants or animals must comply with internationally accepted ethical standards and applicable national regulations.

Studies involving human participants must have received approval from an appropriate ethics committee and be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent must be obtained where applicable.

Studies involving animals must have received approval from the relevant institutional animal ethics committee and comply with internationally recognized guidelines for animal welfare.

Authors should provide ethics approval information within the manuscript.

7. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any financial, professional, or personal relationships that could influence the objectivity of the publication process.

Authors should include a Conflict of Interest Statement in their manuscripts. If no conflicts exist, authors should state:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Editors and reviewers with conflicts of interest will not participate in the editorial or peer-review process for the affected manuscript.

8. Plagiarism and Similarity Checks

All submitted manuscripts undergo similarity screening using plagiarism detection software before peer review.

Similarity reports are evaluated by the editorial team. A similarity score alone does not determine editorial decisions; editors assess the nature, extent, and context of any textual overlap.

Manuscripts containing plagiarism, duplicate publication, manipulated images, or other forms of publication misconduct will be rejected or, if already published, handled according to COPE recommendations.

9. Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern

The journal follows COPE recommendations for post-publication corrections.

Corrections may be published when errors affecting the accuracy or clarity of a published article are identified.

Retractions are issued when findings are shown to be unreliable due to major errors or research misconduct, including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, or unethical research.

Expressions of Concern may be published when serious concerns arise regarding a published article but conclusive evidence is not yet available.

All corrections, retractions, and editorial notices are permanently linked to the original article to maintain the integrity of the scholarly record.

10. Copyright & Licensing

Authors retain copyright of their published work.

Articles published in JOTCSA are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.

This license permits users to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes, provided appropriate credit is given to the original authors and source, no modifications are made, and the license terms are respected.