General Principles 
- The articles that are decided to be published are queued after the necessary arrangements are made and wait to be published. Authors are informed about the issue in which the article will be published.
- An author whose article is published in MECMUA will be able to publish another article in our Journal at the earliest in the third issue following the publication of the article, except for special issues. For example, an author whose article was published in the March 2021 issue of our Journal will be able to appear in our Journal with another article in the 2022 October issue at the earliest. In addition, an author should not upload another article to the system before the process related to his/her ongoing article is completed. In such a case, the other article or articles uploaded will be rejected.
- Depending on the intensity of the articles received in an issue, quota limitations are applied to faculty members from the same university or authors from the same institution.
- In order for an article to be evaluated and published in MECMUA, the editors must first decide on the suitability of the article for the journal. The editors may directly reject an article that they deem unsuitable or inadequate in terms of form or content without passing it through the referee process. Receiving a favourable report from the referees does not necessarily mean that the article will be published. The editor, editorial board or field editor may decide not to publish an article even if the referees report favourably. However, in such a case, the editor is obliged to inform the author of the reason.
- In each issue of our journal, a quota is applied for articles produced from graduate theses and publication reviews / book reviews, taking into account the number of articles in that issue.
- It is recommended that articles submitted to our journal should not exceed 12,000 words and 40 pages. However, in cases where this number of words and pages must be exceeded, the journal editorial office must be notified in advance.
- If the manuscripts submitted to the journal are supported by any institution or organisation, this institution or organisation should be indicated in the manuscript.
- Studies that have been previously presented in national or international congresses or symposiums and whose abstracts have been published should be sent by specifying these qualifications.
- In case of quotation from published articles, it is obligatory to indicate the source.
- Manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal will not be returned whether they are published or not.
- More than one article by the same author cannot be published in one issue.
- The author(s) undertakes that there are no criminal elements or illegal expressions in the article, that no illegal materials and methods were used during the research, and that all necessary permissions (if any) related to the study have been obtained.
- The author(s) of the journal undertake that in case of publication of their articles, ethical rules are followed and ethical rules are observed and all responsibility in this regard lies with the author(s).
. Correction Articles are not published in our journal. Therefore, authors are required to check their articles meticulously after publication and submit any minor correction requests to the journal editor within three (3) days after the publication of the journal.

2. Open Access Policy
MECMUA is an open access journal. Open access means that all content is freely available at no cost to the user or his/her institution. Without prior permission from the publisher or author, users can download, copy, print, search, link, or use the full text of articles for reading, research, or other lawful purposes.

3. Wage Policy 
MECMUA journal started its publication life as a free of charge ‘International Refereed Journal’ in 2016. No fee is charged for the articles sent to our journal for publication and published in our journal.

4. Publication Frequency
The journal is published online twice a year, in March and September. Special issues may also be published if the Editorial Board deems appropriate

5. Scope 
The journal includes all kinds of scientific articles, translations, introductory/critical and commemorative articles and series of articles in the field of Social Sciences.

6. Publication Language and Spelling
- Although the publication language of the journal is Turkish, the journal also includes studies written in different languages. The abstract of the studies written in a foreign language should be in Turkish.
- It is obligatory to comply with the rules of grammar (spelling, punctuation, clarity, comprehensibility, etc.) to the maximum extent in the studies submitted to the journal. The author is fully responsible for the problems and criticisms arising from spelling and punctuation. In terms of spelling and punctuation, the spelling guide of the Turkish Language Association should be taken as basis, except in cases where the study or subject is compulsory.

7. Journal Plagiarism Policy

A similarity report should be uploaded to the system with the manuscripts submitted to our journal. The iThenticate programme should preferably be used for plagiarism detection. Through this system, it is confirmed that the articles have not been published anywhere before or do not contain any plagiarism. In cases where the plagiarism report is high due to special circumstances (derivation from thesis, etc.), this situation should be notified to the journal editor in advance, and the article should be uploaded to the system if the journal editor approves. Apart from this, articles with a similarity rate of more than 20% are considered plagiarised and rejected.

8. Article Evaluation Process
The average article evaluation period is 3 months. However, this period may decrease or increase depending on the feedback of the referees, whether the referees request corrections on the submitted manuscript, whether the authors fulfil the requested corrections, etc.

8.1. Editor's Pre-Evaluation Process
- The manuscripts are checked by the editor(s) in terms of article template, literature, methodology, findings and conclusion whether they are written in accordance with the rules before they are submitted to the editorial board; when a deficiency and/or error is identified, it is returned to the author within 15 days together with a preliminary evaluation form for correction. During the preliminary evaluation process, the author must have uploaded the Copyright Transfer Form and, if necessary, the ‘Ethics Committee Approval Form’ to the system.
- The author is obliged to make the corrections specified by the editor(s). Manuscripts that do not encounter any problems in the preliminary evaluation process and comply with the journal principles are included in the refereeing process.

8.2. Refereeing Process
- Studies submitted to the journal are submitted to the evaluation of at least two referees with the decision of the Editorial Board. The names of the author(s) and referees are kept mutually confidential. The Editorial Board may have more than two referees review the study when deemed necessary. The final decision regarding the study to be published is made by the Editorial Board, taking into account the opinion of the majority of the referees.
- The period given for the referees to review the article is 10 days. Within 10 days, a reminder message is sent to the referees who do not notify. The referee who does not notify within 5 days after the reminder message is sent is deleted from the referee list of the publication and the referee pool of the journal. The Editorial Board sends the related manuscript to a different referee for evaluation.
- Referees may request corrections more than once for the manuscript submitted to the journal. The author(s) are obliged to fulfil the opinions and suggestions of the referee and the editorial board in order for the manuscript to be published.
- If the author(s) is requested to make a correction, the correction must be made within 10 days at the latest and sent to the journal. The corrected manuscript may be re-examined by the referees requesting the changes if deemed necessary.

8.3. Objection to Referee Reports
The author(s) may object to the negative opinions of the referee(s) provided that they provide evidence. This objection is examined by the Editorial Board and, if deemed necessary, a different referee opinion is sought.

8.4. Editor Evaluation Process
In line with the opinions of the referees, the editor, together with the editorial board, makes a final decision within 1 week. The editor has the right to make the necessary spelling corrections in the manuscripts submitted to the journal, corrections related to the abstract written in a foreign language and other corrections deemed necessary.

8.5. Editorial Board Evaluation Process
The editors submit their decision based on the referees' opinions to the editorial board within 1 week. Manuscripts that are not approved for publication by the editorial board are rejected without being scanned in the plagiarism programme. Manuscripts that are approved for publication are scanned in the plagiarism programme. In case of a positive result from the plagiarism programme, the manuscript is edited. The manuscript is then sent to the responsible author for proofreading. The author's evaluation period for the final reading is 3 days. After the final reading, a DOI number is provided to the manuscript. Manuscripts are published in the order determined by the editorial board.

9. Correction and Withdrawal Processes

9.1. Withdrawal Process for Author / Withdrawal Process for Author or Authors
- In the event that the author(s) realises an inaccuracy or error in the published, early view or under review manuscript, he/she has the obligation to cooperate with the journal editor in the withdrawal process.
- Manuscripts submitted to the journal can be withdrawn by the author through the system as long as they are in the preliminary control step. However, the request for withdrawal of an article whose refereeing process has started is notified to the editor of the journal in writing and with wet signature via e-mail.
- The editor evaluates the issue by taking the opinion of the editor and the editorial board and notifies the author within 20 days.
- Authors cannot send their work to another journal for evaluation unless the editorial board approves the withdrawal request for works whose copyrights have been transferred at the submission stage.

9.2. Withdrawal Process for the Editor 
The editorial board initiates a review of the work in case of suspicion of copyright and plagiarism regarding a work published, in early view or in the evaluation stage. If the editorial board determines that copyright and plagiarism have been committed in the work under evaluation as a result of the review, it withdraws the work from the evaluation and returns it to the authors by citing the detected situations in detail.
If the editorial board determines that copyright infringement and plagiarism have been committed in a published or early view study, it carries out the following withdrawal and notification procedures within 15 days at the latest. The study in which an ethical violation is detected;
- The phrase ‘Withdrawn:’ is added at the beginning of the title in the electronic display.
- Instead of the Abstract and Full Text contents in the electronic display, the reasons for the withdrawal of the study, detailed evidence sources, if any, are published together with the notifications of the institutions and organisations to which the author(s) are affiliated.
- The withdrawal notice is announced on the main page of the journal website.

- ‘Withdrawn.’ is added to the table of contents of the electronic and printed copy of the first issue to be published after the withdrawal date: Title of Study’ in the table of contents of the electronic and printed copy of the first issue starting from the date of retraction, and the reasons for the retraction and the original citations cited therein are shared with the public and researchers starting from the first page.
- The organisation(s) to which the author(s) are affiliated will be notified of the above withdrawal notices.