**General Principles**

The *Middle East Journal of Refugee Studies* is published by the International Refugee Rights Association and has been issued biannually since 2016. It is a peer-reviewed and academic journal with publication languages in Turkish and English. The primary aim of the journal is to provide a platform where researchers, non-governmental organizations, and policymakers can communicate, benefit from each other's practical experiences and research findings through published works, and direct their focus toward new research questions. Articles submitted to the journal must not have been previously published or under review elsewhere.

**Ethics Committee**

If the submitted study requires ethics committee approval (e.g., research conducted using qualitative or quantitative approaches that involve collecting data from participants through surveys, interviews, focus group studies, observation, experiments, or discussion techniques; research involving the experimental or other scientific use of humans or animals, including material/data; clinical studies on humans; animal studies; or retrospective studies under the Personal Data Protection Law), a section titled "Ethical Considerations" must be added under the methodology section of the text. This section should include details of the ethics committee approval, including the name of the committee, the date, and the approval number. Additionally, the approval document must be uploaded to the system. For intellectual and artistic works, compliance with copyright regulations is mandatory, and this compliance must be explicitly stated in the manuscript.

**Article Submission Process**

Submissions, evaluations, publication processes, and notifications are carried out via the DergiPark system. The article uploaded during submission must comply with the journal's writing guidelines and specified requirements, and a copyright transfer form must be completed and uploaded to the system. Since the articles are sent for blind review, the document uploaded as the article must not include any author information.

**Documents to be Uploaded to the System:**

- **Similarity report** (Must be generated through iThenticate or Turnitin software and show a similarity rate below 20%).
- **Cover page** (Including the article title, academic titles, institution, faculty/institute/school, department, e-mail addresses, and ORCID IDs of all authors in order. It should also detail whether the work is derived from a thesis, supported by a project, or presented as a conference paper).
- **Article** (Excluding author information).
- **Ethics committee approval** (if applicable).
- **Copyright transfer agreement.**

**Article Evaluation Process**

Submitted articles will undergo an initial evaluation to ensure the completeness of the required documents, such as the manuscript file, copyright transfer form, and similarity report, as well as compliance with the journal's writing guidelines. If these criteria are met, the article will be sent to two reviewers. If the two reviewers provide conflicting opinions, a third reviewer will be consulted. Throughout the process, the identities of the authors and reviewers will remain confidential. If revisions are required based on reviewer feedback, the authors must upload the revised version to the system. The final decision on whether the article will be published is made by the editors and the editorial board based on the reviewers' reports. Accepted articles proceed to the typesetting stage, while rejected articles are declined. The scientific responsibility for the articles lies with the authors.

**General Appearance and Page Layout**

The manuscript, including tables, charts, figures, and maps, must use the Times New Roman font in 11-point size. Adequate margins should be left: 3 cm at the top and right, and 2 cm at the bottom and left. Submitted articles must include an abstract, keywords, and references, and their word count should be between 5,000 and 10,000. The order of sections must be as follows, with priority given to the language of the manuscript:

1. Title in Turkish.
2. Abstract in Turkish.
3. Keywords in Turkish.
4. Title in the foreign language.
5. Abstract in the foreign language.
6. Keywords in the foreign language.
7. Main text.
8. References.

**Article Title**

The title must be in bold, justified, and written in 11-point size.

**Abstract**

At the beginning of the manuscript, a concise abstract in both Turkish and English (150–200 words), written in 10-point size, must summarize the topic. Abstracts should not reference sources or include figure and table numbers. Keywords (minimum 3, maximum 8) must follow the abstract in both Turkish and English, separated by one blank line. The first line of the abstract should be left-aligned, with no indentation, and the line spacing must be set to 1.15.

**Headings**

Research articles should include the following sections: Introduction, Methodology, Results, Conclusion, and Discussion. Main headings should be centered, bold, and written in 11-point size. Level 2 and Level 3 headings must be left-aligned, 11-point size, bold, with only the first letter of each word capitalized. Level 4 and Level 5 headings should also be left-aligned, 11-point size, bold, italic, and with only the first letter of each word capitalized. Subheadings must be unnumbered, left-aligned, bold, and italic in 11-point size.

**Line Spacing**

The line spacing for the text is set to 1.15. A 6-pt space should be left before and after each paragraph.

**Paragraph Alignment and Indentation**

The first line of each paragraph must be indented by 1.25 inches from the left margin. The text must be justified.

**Tables and Figures**

Table titles should be placed above the table, while figure titles should be placed below the figure. All titles should be bold, 11-point size, with only the first word capitalized. Source information should appear below the table, centered, and in 10-point size.

Example:

- **Table 1: Table Title**
- **Figure 1: Figure Title**

**Citations**

The reference style for submitted articles must comply with the APA 6 (American Psychological Association Manual) standards. All in-text citations must correspond to entries in the reference list. In-text citations must include the author's last name, publication year, and page number.

Examples:

- Single author: (Duyan, 2020, p. 45).
- Two authors (Turkish): (Duyan ve Arslan, 1997, s. 55).
- Two authors (Foreign): (Nielsen & Borlund, 2011, p. 43).
- Three or more authors (Turkish): (Yılmaz ve ark., 2016, s. 33).
- Three or more authors (Foreign): (Tom et al., 2016, p. 33).

**References**

The reference list must use a hanging paragraph style. Examples of correctly formatted references are as follows:

- **Journal Article:**
Çakır, S. (2011). Geleneksel Türk Kültüründe Göç ve Toplumsal Değişme. *Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 24*, 129-142.

- **Book:**
Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). *Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst.* Penguin Books.

- **Chapter in an Edited Book:**
Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (2013). Conditioned emotional reactions: The case of Little Albert (D. Webb, Ed.). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. *(Original work published 1920).*

- **Website:**
Dünya Gazetesi. (2010, June 18). 2009’da 591,742 çift evlendi. Retrieved February 21, 2021, from [https://www.dunya.com](https://www.dunya.com).

- **Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis:**
Acar, A. E. (2011). Kronik Hastalıkların, Hastaların Aile İşlevleri ve Yaşam Doyumları Üzerine Etkisi (Unpublished Master’s Thesis). Dokuz Eylül University Institute of Educational Sciences, İzmir.