Referee Process Principles
Evaluation Principles
1) Manuscripts that have not been previously published or are not currently under review for publication in another journal and approved by each author are accepted for evaluation.
2) Submitted and pre-checked manuscripts are scanned for plagiarism using Ithenticate (or others) software.
3) Kocaeli Journal of Theology conducts a double blind review process. All manuscripts will first be evaluated by the editor for suitability for the journal. The eligible manuscripts are sent to at least two independent expert referees to assess the scientific quality of the manuscript.
4) The Editor-in-Chief evaluates manuscripts independently of the ethnic origin, gender, nationality, religious beliefs and political philosophy of the authors. He/she ensures that the manuscripts submitted for publication undergo a fair double blind peer review.
5) The editor-in-chief does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and referees.
6) The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles. The editor's decision is final.
7) Editors are not involved in decisions about manuscripts written by themselves or by family members or colleagues, or that relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures.
Reviewers should ensure that all information about submitted manuscripts remains confidential until the manuscript is published, and should report to the editor if they discover any copyright infringement or plagiarism on the part of the author.
If the referee does not feel qualified in the subject matter of the manuscript or is unlikely to be able to provide timely feedback, he/she should inform the editor and ask him/her not to involve him/herself in the review process.
During the review process, the editor should make it clear to reviewers that manuscripts submitted for review are the private property of the authors and that this is a privileged communication. Reviewers and editorial board members may not discuss manuscripts with other individuals. Care should be taken to keep the identity of the reviewers confidential.

Review Process
Refereeing Type: Double Blind
Double Blinding: After the plagiarism check, eligible manuscripts are evaluated by the editor-in-chief in terms of originality, methodology, importance of the topic covered and compatibility with the scope of the journal. The editor ensures that the manuscripts undergo double-blind refereeing in a fair manner and, if the manuscript meets the formal requirements, submits the manuscript to the evaluation of at least two referees from Turkey and / or abroad, and if the referees deem necessary, they approve the publication of the manuscript after the desired changes are made by the authors.
Review Time: Pre-Publication
Author-Referee Interactions: Editors mediate all interactions between reviewers and authors.
Acceptance Rate: We publish approximately 50% of the articles received by our journal.
Plagiarism Check: Yes -Ithenticate scans articles to prevent plagiarism.
Number of Referees Reviewing Each Article: Two-three
Permitted Duration: 20 days. This period can be extended by adding 10 days.
Decision: In order for the article to be accepted for publication by the Editor, at least two referees must make an acceptance decision.
Suspicion of Ethical Violation: Referees should inform the Editor if they suspect misconduct in the research or publication. The Editor is responsible for taking the necessary actions in accordance with COPE recommendations.

• The Editor-in-Chief reviews the research article on the day of submission and, if he/she feels that the article is worthy of further consideration, sends it to the Deputy Editor for a more detailed review. For research articles, the deputy editor usually reads each article from start to finish. We aim to reach an initial decision for all manuscripts within two or three weeks, but usually the initial decision is made within a few days of submission. If we do not feel that Kocaeli Journal of Theology is the right journal for the study, we will notify the authors immediately so that they can submit their work elsewhere without delay. The usual reasons for rejection at this stage are insufficient originality and the topic being outside the scope of the journal.
• The next step for your research paper is our Editorial Board meeting. The members will read your paper and discuss its importance, originality and scientific quality. To make editorial decisions for research articles, we mainly focus on the research question. Even if the topic of the article is relevant, topical and important to the scope of the journal, we may reject the article if it does not have a research question. Of course, the manuscript will be rejected if it has serious flaws. Everyone attending the paper meeting is asked to declare relevant conflicting interests at the outset, and anyone with a significant conflicting interest either leaves the room or speaks last (depending on the nature and extent of their interest) while the paper is being discussed.
• If your article is suitable for Kocaeli Journal of Theology, the section editor will send your article to two external referees. The referees advise the editors, who make the final decision. We ask the referees to approve their reports and declare any conflicts of interest on the manuscript we send them. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief after external peer review processes.
• Some manuscripts may also be reviewed by the ethics editor of Kocaeli Journal of Theology in cases of suspected serious research misconduct and by third parties deemed appropriate by the editor.
• For all manuscripts, we aim to reach a final decision on publication within 4 to 6 weeks of submission. If we propose a publication subject to revision, we usually ask authors to revise and upload their manuscripts within the following month.
• Accepted articles are published on https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/kider/archive as they are prepared. After publication, the articles are selected for the next issue.
• Kocaeli Journal of Theology provides open access to articles as part of its commitment to readers and authors. All our articles are freely accessible online.
• If you notice any errors in your published article, email the editor-in-chief who will let you know if the correction should be made.

Principles of the Refereeing Process for the Work of the Editorial Staff
Editorial and analysis articles written by the editors of Kocaeli Journal of Theology are not subject to external refereeing. Original research articles are sent to at least two external reviewers as blind referees. During this period, the roles of those editors are suspended.

Author Responsibilities
The author must comply with research and publication training.
The author should not attempt to publish the same work in more than one journal.
The author should indicate the works used in the writing of the article in the bibliography.

Responsibilities of the Editor
The editor evaluates manuscripts for scientific content without regard to the ethnic origin, gender, citizenship, religious belief or political opinion of the authors.
The editor conducts fair double-blind peer review of manuscripts submitted for publication and ensures that all information about submitted manuscripts is kept confidential before publication.
The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. Reviewers and the editorial board cannot discuss manuscripts with other people. The anonymity of the referees must be ensured. In certain cases, the editor may share a reviewer's review with other reviewers to clarify a particular point.
The editor is responsible for the content and overall quality of the publication. It is also his/her responsibility to issue a correction note or retraction when necessary.
The editor does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and referees. He/she has full authority only to appoint referees, and the Editorial Board is responsible for the final decision regarding the publication of manuscripts in the journal.

Responsibilities of Reviewers
Reviewers should not have any conflicts of interest related to the research, authors and/or research funders.
Reviewers' evaluations should be objective.
The language and style used by the referees should not offend the author.
Reviewers should ensure that all information regarding the submitted manuscripts remains confidential until the manuscript is published.
Reviewers should notify the editor if they notice copyright infringement or plagiarism in the work they review.
A reviewer who feels inadequate to review an article or who feels that he/she cannot complete the review within the specified time should withdraw from the review process.
During the review process, reviewers are expected to consider the following points: Does the article contain new and important information? / Does the abstract clearly and properly describe the content of the article? / Is the methodology described in a coherent and understandable manner? / Are the interpretations and conclusions substantiated by the findings? / Are adequate references given to other studies in the field? / Is the language quality adequate?

Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Check
The manuscript is reviewed by the editor for compliance with the journal's publication principles, academic writing rules and ISNAD Citation System, and is scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate or Turnitin software. The preliminary review is completed within a maximum of 15 days. The plagiarism similarity rate must be less than 20%. If the similarity rate is 1%, but citation and quotation are not done properly, plagiarism may still be in question. In this respect, citation and quotation rules must be known and carefully applied by the author:

Citation/Indirect Quotation: If a citation is made to an opinion, discussion or determination in a source and the cited opinion is put on the line with the citing researcher's own words, a footnote mark (1) should be placed at the end of the sentence. If the reference is to a certain page or page range of the work, the page number should be given. If there is a reference to the entire work, that is, if the reference is made to a degree that requires the reader to examine the entire work, the source should be indicated in the footnote after the phrase "bk. on this subject", "bk. about this opinion", "bk. about this discussion" or just "bk.".

Quotation/Iquotation: If the relevant part of the source is taken exactly as it is, without touching the point and comma, the quoted part is "given in double quotation marks" and the source is indicated by giving the footnote number1 at the end. Quotations that exist in the directly quoted text are written using 'single quotation marks'. If the directly quoted part is longer than three lines (more than forty words), it is shown in a separate paragraph. In order to distinguish long quotations from the main text, it should be preferred to write in a font size one smaller than the normal text size and to indent the entire paragraph from the left at the beginning of the line. In direct quotations, some words, sentences and paragraphs may be omitted, provided that they do not change the meaning. Ellipses (...) are placed in place of the omitted parts. It is not correct to write the part quoted verbatim from a source without enclosing it in "double quotation marks" and to be contented with just writing the source at the end. If these rules are not followed, the author may be accused of violation of publication ethics (Plagiarism).

Field Editor Review
The manuscript that passes the Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Scanning stage is examined by the relevant field editor in terms of problematic and academic language and style. This review is completed in maximum 15 days.

Referee Process (Academic Evaluation)
After being reviewed by the field editor, the manuscript is submitted to the evaluation of at least two external referees who have a doctoral thesis, book or article on the subject. The referee process is carried out in confidentiality within the framework of double blind refereeing. The referee is requested to express his/her opinion and judgement on the manuscript either on the text or to justify it with an explanation of at least 150 words on the online referee form. If the author disagrees with the referee's opinion, he/she is given the right to object and defend his/her views. The field editor ensures mutual communication between the author and the referee while maintaining confidentiality. If both referee reports are favourable, the manuscript is submitted to the Editorial Board with a proposal for publication. If one of the two referees has a negative opinion, the manuscript is sent to a third referee. Studies can be published with the positive decision of at least two referees. The publication of book and symposium reviews and doctoral thesis abstracts is decided after the evaluation of at least two internal referees (relevant field editors and/or members of the editorial board).

Proofreading Phase
If the referees request corrections to be made in the text they have reviewed, the relevant reports are sent to the author and the author is asked to correct his/her work. The author makes the corrections in the Word program with the "Track Changes" feature turned on or indicates the changes in the text in red. Submits the corrected text to the field editor.

Field Editor Control
The field editor checks whether the author has made the requested corrections to the text.

Referee Check
The reviewer checks whether the author has made the requested corrections in the text.

Turkish Language Check
The manuscripts that pass through the referee process are reviewed by the Turkish Language Editor and the Editor-in-Chief, and if necessary, the author is asked to make corrections. The review process is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

English Language Control
The manuscripts that pass the Turkish language control are examined by the English Language Editor and, if necessary, corrections are requested from the author. The English language editor's control process is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Editorial Board Review
Technical, academic and linguistic articles are examined by the Editorial Board and it is decided whether they will be published or not, and if so, in which issue they will be included. The Board decides by majority vote. In case of equality, the final decision is made in favour of the editor's decision.

Typesetting and Layout Phase
The manuscripts decided to be published by the Editorial Board are prepared for publication by typesetting and layout and sent to the author for review. This stage takes maximum 15 days.

Data Submission to National and International Indexes
The data of the published issue is sent to the relevant indexes within 15 days.