PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

Middle Eastern Studies (MES) is an international, peer-reviewed multidisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing scholarly articles on all aspects of Middle East. Available online and published twice a year, the journal aims to become one of the leading platforms in the world for new findings and discussions of all fields of Middle East.

THE POSITION OF MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES ON PUBLISHING ETHICS
Middle Eastern Studies (MES) is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards for all parties involved in the act of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal: the author, the editor of the journal, the peer reviewer and the publisher.
The publishing ethics of Middle Eastern Studies, both internally and externally, are based on- and adhere to- the Committee on Publication Ethics' (COPE) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors (March 2011) and Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers (March 2011).

EDITOR RESPONSIBILITIES

Accountability:
The editors of Middle Eastern Studies (MES) are accountable and responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor may be guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.

Impartiality:
The reviewing process and publication decision will occur without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality:
The editor(s) and any editorial staff will not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest:
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript will not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review will be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editors make fair and unbiased decisions independent of commercial considerations and ensure a fair and appropriate peer-review process. Editors recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-editor, associate editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editors will require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action will be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations:
Editors of Middle Eastern Studies (MES) will guard the integrity of the published record by issuing corrections and retractions when needed and pursuing suspected or alleged research and publication misconduct. Editors should pursue reviewer and editorial misconduct. An editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

REVIEWERS RESPONSIBILITIES

Contribution to Editorial Decisions:
Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper.

Promptness:
Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

Confidentiality:
Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others except as authorized by the editor.

Standards of Objectivity:
Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgment of Sources:
Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest:
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

AUTHOR RESPONSIBILITIES

Reporting standards:
Authors should present their results clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation. Authors should describe their methods clearly and unambiguously so that their findings can be confirmed by others.

Originality, plagiarism, and acknowledgment of sources:
Authors should adhere to publication requirements that submitted work is original, is not plagiarized, and has not been published elsewhere - fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable. If an author has used the work and/or words of others, that this original is been appropriately cited or quoted and accurately reflects individuals' contributions to the work and its reporting.

Data Access and Retention:
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.

Ethics:
Authors should only submit papers only on work that has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and that complies with all relevant legislation.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest:
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Authorship of the Paper:
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.

Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication:
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

Fundamental errors in published works:
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author's obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the editor of the correctness of the original paper.

PUBLISHER'S RESPONSIBILITIES

Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Ankara, Turkey, as the publisher of Middle Eastern Studies (MES), encourages the editors to follow the COPE Code of Conduct for the Editors. The publisher provides reasonable practical support to editors so that they can follow the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal. The publisher defines the relationship between publisher, editor, and other parties in a contract, respect privacy (for example, for research participants, for authors, for peer reviewers), protects intellectual property and copyright, and fosters editorial independence.

Publisher works with journal editors to set journal policies appropriately and aim to meet those policies, particularly with respect to:
     editorial independence,
     research ethics, including confidentiality, consent, and the special requirements for human and animal research,
     authorship,
     transparency and integrity (for example, conflicts of interest, research funding, reporting standards,
     peer review and the role of the editorial team beyond that of the journal editör
     appeals and complaints,

Publisher works with journal editors to:
     communicate journal policies (for example, to authors, readers, peer reviewers),
     review journal policies periodically, particularly with respect to new recommendations from the COPE Code of Conduct for Editors and the COPE Best Practice Guidelines,
     maintain the integrity of the academic record,
     assist the parties (for example, institutions, grant funders, governing bodies) responsible for the investigation of suspected research and publication misconduct and, where possible, facilitate in the resolution of these cases,
     publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions,
     and publish content on a timely basis.

PUBLİSH POLİCY

The practice of peer review is to ensure that the highest quality articles are published. It is a process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out on all reputable journals. Our referees play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of Middle Eastern Studies are peer-reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

Initial manuscript evaluation:
The initial submission consists of 2 steps. As a first step, all submissions will be checked by iThenticate software. Articles with a similarity rate of more than 20% are rejected. In the second step, submissions are screened for completeness and adherence to the Instructions for Authors. Those that pass are then assigned to the Editor in Chief for consideration for sending for peer review. Authors of manuscripts rejected at the initial evaluation stage will normally be informed within 1 week of receipt.

Editor in Chief evaluation:
When assigned a new submission, the Editor in Chief will decide if it warrants peer review or if it should be rejected without review. Manuscripts rejected at this stage are not sufficiently original, have serious conceptual and/or methodological flaws, have poor grammar or English/Turkish language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal.

Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will normally be informed within 10 days of assignment to the editor in chief.
Feedback is provided by the Editor in Chief for all manuscripts rejected without review and, where possible, suggestions are made on other suitable publication outlets.
Those manuscripts considered suitable for peer review are passed to at least 2 expert referees for review.

Double-blind Peer Review:
Middle Eastern Studies employs double-blind peer review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not give away their identity.
Besides the obvious need to remove names and affiliations under the title within the manuscript, there are other steps that need to be taken to ensure the manuscript is correctly prepared for double-blind peer review. To assist with this process the key items that need to be observed are as follows:

Use the third person to refer to work the Authors have previously undertaken, e.g. replace any phrases like “as we have discussed before” with “… has been discussed before [Anonymous, 2007]”

Cite papers published by the Author in the text as follows: ‘[Anonymous, 2007]’. For blinding in the reference list: ‘[Anonymous 2007] Details omitted for double-blind reviewing.’

Make sure figures and tables do not contain any affiliation related identifier Do not eliminate essential self-references or other references but limit self-references only to papers that are relevant for those reviewing the submitted paper.
Remove references to funding sources. Do not include acknowledgments. Remove any identifying information, including author names, from file names and ensure document properties are also anonymized.

Reviewers are randomly matched to the paper according to their expertise, and our referee database is constantly being updated. We welcome suggestions for reviewers from authors, even though these recommendations may or may not be used.

Reviewers are asked to evaluate a manuscript for:
Organization originality and significance of contribution potential interest to a wide spectrum of social scientists and/or practitioners interest to wide readership interest to social scientists and/or practitioners coverage of appropriate existing literatüre adequacy of methodology, analysis and interpretation clear, concise and jargon-free writing style
Reviewers are asked to provide anonymous comments to the author and are also given the option of providing confidential comments to the editor. The comments to the author are also made available to other reviewers of the manuscript.

Please note that language correction is not part of the peer-review process but referees are encouraged to suggest corrections of language and style to the manuscript.Typically, the manuscript will be reviewed within 2-3 months. If the reviewers’ reports contradict one another or a report is unduly delayed, a further expert opinion will be sought. If necessary, revised manuscripts may be returned to the initial reviewers, usually within 1 month. Reviewers and the Chief Editor may request more than one revision of a manuscript, and alternative reviewers may also be invited to review the manuscript at any time.

The final decision:
The Editorial Board is responsible for the decision to reject or recommend the manuscript for publication. This decision will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees.