Writing Rules

General Information

Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Medical Journal is the periodical of Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Faculty of Medicine and is published regularly three times a year, excluding special issues. Prospective, retrospective and experimental studies, case reports and invited reviews related to every branch of medicine are evaluated for publication. The condition is that there are ethical and scientific standards on the subject and that there are no commercial concerns. Manuscripts that are not in the evaluation process in another journal and that have not been published before by the authors are evaluated. After the initial evaluation, manuscripts go through the biostatistics editor, at least two peer-reviews and language evaluations, and the requested changes are made by the authors if necessary. After the changes made are re-evaluated, the articles accepted by the editor are published in the journal.
Scientific Responsibilities
All identified as authors must plan or perform the study and have been involved in writing, reviewing, and approving the final version of the study. It is the responsibility of all authors to come up with a text that meets the criteria.
Ethical Responsibilities
Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Journal of Medicine aims to contribute to the correct progress of science by publishing articles that comply with ethical and scientific standards. In this context, compliance of studies with scientific ethics is important. Ethical principles have been adopted by Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Medical Journal based on the directive prepared by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) (https://publicationethics.org/resources/resources-and-further-reading/international-standards-editors-and-authors) and it is recommended to be adopted by authors, reviewers and editors. Some of these recommendations are given below.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors:
- To keep the data records related to the study in order and to be able to access these data on a possible request.
- One should make sure that the article sent is not published or accepted elsewhere.
-To ensure compliance with national and international laws and guidelines for all studies involving human or animal subjects, (for example, WMA Declaration of Helsinki, NIH Policy on the Use of Laboratory Animals, EU Directive on the Use of Animals), confirm that necessary permissions and approvals have been obtained, respect the privacy of the subject, indicate the relevant ethics committee approvals and research details for the study in the “Materials and Methods” section of the study.
- In case of any conflict of interest, share an ethical violation with the editor and publisher, publish an error statement, addendum, compensation notice or withdraw the work when deemed necessary.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers:
- In order to contribute to the editor's decision-making process, one must review the article in a timely manner objectively and agree to consider only studies related to one’s area of expertise.
- Make the evaluation objectively only in relation to the content of the study.
- Evaluate the study regardless of religious, political and economic interests.
- Give directions that will help to improve the quality of the article to be published and carefully examine the study. Comments to the author should be conveyed in a constructive and courteous language.
- The information provided by the editor and the author should be kept confidential, if there is a situation contrary to blind refereeing, the editör should be notified and the study should not be evaluated.
- Be aware of potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative or other relationships between authors) and alert the editor to withdraw assistance for this article if necessary.
Editors’ Responsibilities:
- Act in a balanced, objective and fair manner in the performance of duties without discrimination on the basis of gender, religious or political beliefs, ethnic or geographical origin of the authors.
- Evaluate the studies submitted to the journal according to their content and should not give any privilege to any author.
- Take the necessary measures to prevent possible conflicts of interest and evaluate existing statements, if any.
- In case of an ethical violation complaint, follow the necessary procedures by adhering to the journal’s policies and procedures. Give the authors an opportunity to respond to the complaint, and should not avoid applying the necessary sanctions, regardless of who the work belongs to.
- If not suitable for the journal’s purpose and scope, reject the submission.
In all research articles (including retrospective studies), Ethics Committee Approval should be obtained for the study and the place, date (day, month and year) and approval number of the Ethics Committee Approval should be obtained in the "Materials and Methods" section and "Ethics Committee Approval" sections. (The ethics committee approval document should also be uploaded to the system electronically during the article submission). In all human studies, it should be stated that the study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki http://www.wma.net/en/30/publications/10policies/b3/index.html) In case reports, the sentence "Written informed consent was obtained from the patient (or his /her legal guardian) that his/her medical data can be published" should be stated together with the patient's consent date (The consent document should also be uploaded to the system). Institutional or national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals for animal experiments should be followed and stated. The editor and the editorial board are not responsible for the sentences used by the authors in their studies. Scientific, legal and ethical responsibility belongs to the authors.
The corresponding author should state in the cover letter that the submitted work has not been published elsewhere and is not in the process of being evaluated in another journal simultaneously. If a part of the study was presented as an oral or poster presentation at the congress, it should be stated on the title page by giving the name, place and date of the congress (The title page sample can be accessed via the relevant link).
All rights of use and publication of the accepted article belong to the journal and cannot be published elsewhere without permission.
Evaluation: All articles are evaluated by at least two reviewers using the double-blind evaluation method. Evaluation of the articles is made by considering their scientific importance and originality. Manuscripts accepted for publication can be rearranged by the editorial board by notifying the authors without changing the content.
Plagiarism screening: For articles sent to the journal, a plagiarism report should be uploaded to the system. Studies with a similarity rate higher than 20% should not be uploaded to the system.
Conflict of interest: If there is an institution that directly or indirectly provides financial support for all personal, commercial connections or studies that may be a party to their work, the authors must notify that they have no commercial relationship with the commercial product, drug, company used or what kind of relationship they have (consultant, other agreements, etc.) in the cover letter and under the relevant heading at the end of the article.
Language
The publication language of the journal will be English as of April 2024. The processes of Turkish articles processed in the system will continue until the specified date. As of May 1, 2023, only English articles can be uploaded to the system. All spelling and spelling errors in submitted articles can be corrected by the editor without changing the meaning and data. It is the responsibility of the authors to arrange the text in accordance with the rules.
Copyright Notice
In order to notify the copyright transfer, the copyright transfer form of the journal should be downloaded from the journal website and signed by all authors and uploaded to the system. Authors are not paid.
Article Types
Review: Reviews should shed light on new or controversial areas. It should include English and Turkish titles, single-paragraph abstracts and keywords. The journal editor invites for review writing.
Original articles: Original articles report the results of basic or clinical studies or clinical trials. Article should contain an English abstract, Turkish abstract (abstracts should be written without subtitles), introduction, materials and methods, findings/results, discussion, acknowledgement (if necessary), conflict of interest statement, ethics committee approval (place/date/number), funding statement, references and tables, figures and pictures. Click here for sample article template.
The number of words in the original article should not exceed 5000 words, excluding abstracts, references, tables and figures. The number of references should not exceed 40. The number of tables should not exceed 5. The number of figures and pictures should not exceed 5.
Case Report: Case reports that are important in every field of medicine are published. It should consist of an English abstract, Turkish abstract,introduction, case, discussion, written consent statement and references. Click here for sample case report template.
The word count in case reports shold not exceed 2000 words excluding abstracts, references, tables and figures. The number of references should not exceed 10. The number of pictures and figures should not exceed 3.
Text Submission
All manuscripts should be sent electronically via https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/muskutd
Preparation of the article
General Rules
The article should be uploaded to the system with the name and surname of the responsible author. All information belonging to all authors in the article should be uploaded to the system completely and at the very beginning of the process.
The article should be prepared in “Microsoft Word” format, double-spaced, in “Times New Roman” font, 12 point size, without any spaces between the lines, and with continuous line numbers. Pages should be numbered at the bottom right corner starting from the abstract page. A margin of 2.5 cm should be left on all sides of the page (It is recommended to use the sample article template found on the journal web page).
"System International" (SI) units should be used in the article. Tables and figures should be specified in the text. Abbreviations should be given in parentheses at the first occurrence of the word. Abbreviations should not be used in the abstract. In articles, X% should be adjacent in spellings. Dots (55.78) should be used in decimals.
Cover Letter: This page should have the full English and Turkish titles of the study. The type of work should be written under the title, adjacent to the right. The names of all contributing authors should be “bold”, names should be in lower case except the first letter, and surnames should be centered on the page in capital letters and should be numbered in the upper right corner following the surnames to indicate the institutions. Corresponding author should also be indicated with a “*” sign (Ex: Serkan ERGÖZEN1, Deniz AKPINAR2*). The institution, department, city, country and ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) numbers of the author should be stated below the names of the authors, justified to the left, followed by the upper numbering. If any part of the article was presented as an oral or poster presentation at a scientific meeting, the name, place and date of the scientific meeting should be stated below this information. If the work is financially supported by any institution or organization, this should be clearly stated on the title page. The name and surname of the corresponding author, current postal address, e-mail address, accessible telephone numbers (GSM number must be specified) should be written at the bottom of the title page. Click here for sample title page template. Individual ORCID numbers can be obtained free of charge from http://orcid.org. The corresponding author who will communicate with the journal editor during the printing process should be specified.
Abstract and Keywords: The abstract should not exceed 250 words. The aim, method, findings and results of the study should be summarized (in a single text without being separated by titles). Abbreviations should not be used in the abstract. A maximum of 5 keywords should be given. Words must be separated by commas (,). Every word must start with a capital letter. English words must be in accordance with the Medical Subjects Headings list in Index Medicus www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html. Turkish keywords should be given in accordance with the Turkish Science Terms (TBT) www.bilimterimleri.com
Introduction: It should briefly and clearly discuss the aims of the study, include basic information about why the study was conducted, and report which hypotheses were tested.
Materials and Methods: Materials and methods should be explained clearly and precisely. In the first emphasis, the model numbers of the vehicles and devices used, the company name and address (city, country) must be specified. All measurements should be given in metric units and generic names of drugs should be used.
Statistical Evaluation: The population and sample of the research should be explained clearly, and it should be stated by which sampling method the sample was selected. In addition, the time period in which the study data were collected, where it was collected and how the sample size was calculated should be explained. It should be stated which program/software language is used for statistical analysis. It should be explained according to which criterion/criteria the applied statistical analyzes were selected. Descriptive statistics of quantitative variables compared with parametric statistical tests should be stated as mean±standard deviation, descriptive statistics of quantitative variables compared with non-parametric statistical tests should be stated as median (25th - 75th percentile) or median (minimum - maximum). If multivariate statistical methods are used to obtain statistics such as odds or hazard ratio, confidence intervals and p values for these values should be specified. The p-values for all statistical analyzes should be stated explicitly (eg as p=0.002, not as p<0.01) and as three decimal places in the tables. More than one p-value can be specified in the text in a closed format (such as p>0.05), provided that it is explicitly stated in the table.
Results: Findings should be presented using text, tables and figures. Tables and texts should not be repeated. The p value should be stated in the text (such as p=0.014). Decimal numbers must be marked with a period (.) (eg 2.18); commas (,) should not be used.
Discussion: The differences and results of the study should be emphasized. The most important finding should be briefly and clearly stated, the validity of the observations should be discussed, the findings should be interpreted in the light of publications on the same or similar topics, and the possible importance of the study should be stated. It is recommended to highlight the main findings of the study in a short and concise paragraph.
Conclusions: Conclusions based on data should be presented concisely and clearly.
Acknowledgement: Authors should thank people who contributed to the research but were not involved as authors.
Conflict of interest statement: Authors should state their conflict of interest in this heading.
Ethics committee approval: The place/date/number information of the ethics committee approval for the study should be stated completely.
Financial support: If there are any institutions and organizations that support the study, they should be stated in this section.
Tables, Figures and Pictures: All tables, pictures, figures and other visuals should be numbered consecutively in the main text in accordance with the order of use in the text. It should be prepared in such a way that the information containing patient and doctor identities and the names of the institutions cannot be seen in the images used. Tables should be presented after the reference list. Tables should not be submitted in JPEG, TIFF or other image formats. In addition to descriptive information in microscopic figures, the magnification ratio and staining technique used should also be specified. Images must be uploaded to the system with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI. Each of the figures, pictures, graphics and photographs should be added to the system as a separate .jpg or .gif file. Figures should be numbered with Arabic (1, 2, 3, etc.) numbers according to their order of use in the text and should be shown in parentheses in the text. Lines used in graphics should be of sufficient thickness to prevent distortion during resizing in preparation for publication. Abbreviations used in tables should be defined below the tables. Roman numerals (I, II, II, etc.) should not be used in the titles of tables and figures and in mentioning the table in the text.
References: References should be numbered using natural numbers in accordance with the order in which they are cited in the text, in parentheses at the end of the sentence and one character space after the last word of the sentence. Kaynak gösterimi sonrası boşluk bırakılmadan “.” konarak cümle tamamlanmalıdır After citation, the sentence should be completed by adding “.” without a space (In single references: “In the 19th century, Claude Bernard revealed that CO caused hypoxia by interacting with hemoglobin (3).”; in sequential and more than two references: “The half-life of CO is 320 minutes by breathing fresh air. , 74 minutes with 100% O2 respiration and 2.5-3 absolute atmospheres (ATA) with HBOT it is reported as 20-23 minutes (26-30).”; in case of more than two references, reference numbers should be separated with “,” and written adjacent: “Instead of HBOT indication for patients by considering only COHb level, other items, especially the patient's clinic, should be evaluated together as a whole (26,28,31).” In the list of references, if the number of authors is three or less, all of them should be written, and if there are more than three, only the first three names should be written and “et al.” should be added. Source and abbreviated journal titles should be in accordance with Index Medicus or the examples given below. The sources written in the study must be read and presented when requested.
Example for journal articles
For articles with three or less authors;
Murtaugh TJ, Wright LS, Siegel FL. Calmodulin plus cyclic AMP-dependent phosphorylation of a Mr 22,000 pituitary protein. J Biol Chem. 1985;260(29):15932-7.
For articles with more than three authors;
Pérez-Castro CC, Kormanovski A, Guevara-Balcázar G, et al. Hyperbaric oxygenation applied before or after mild or hard stress: effects on the redox state in the muscle tissue. Korean J Physiol Pharmacol. 2023;27(1):9-20.
For online journal article
Gorini S, De Angelis A, Berrino L, et al. Chemotherapeutic Drugs and Mitochondrial Dysfunction: Focus on Doxorubicin, Trastuzumab, and Sunitinib. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2019; doi: 10.1155/2018/7582730.
Example for committee or author groups
The Standard Task Force, American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons: Practice parameters for the treatment of haemorrhoids. Dis Colon Rectum 1993;36:1118-20.
For oral/poster presantations
Kantar Gök D, Akpınar D, Özen Ş, Akkiraz P. Pre ya da postnatal dönemde uygulanan elektrik alanın somatosensoriyal uyarılma potansiyelleri üzerine etkisi (Poster Bildiri). 23. Ulusal Biyofizik Kongresi. Edirne, 13-16 Eylül 2011, P-33, sayfa 52-53.
Example for the book
Bateson M, Bouchier I. Clinical Investigation and Function, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications Ltd, 1981.
Example for Chapter from a Book:
Milson JW. Haemorrhoidal disease. In: Beck DE, Wexner S, eds. Fundamentals of Anorectal Surgery. New York: McGraw-Hill, pp 192-214, 1992.
For Thesis
Ergözen S. The effects of hyperbaric oxygen treatment on HIF-1?, iNOS and VEGF levels with diabetic foot patients (Uzmanlık Tezi). GATA, Tıp Fakültesi, Ankara, 2009, ss 19-25.
For web site
Vitamin D Eksikliği. Türk Endokrinoloji ve Metabolizma Derneği Osteoporoz ve Diğer Metabolik Kemik Hastalıkları Çalışma Grubu. Erişim tarihi 01.10.2019, http://temd.org.tr/hastalar-icin/10-osteoporoz