Instructions for Authors

Thank you for choosing Rast Müzikoloji Dergisi (Rast Musicology Journal: RMJ) to submit your article. The instructions we will give you will relieve you of your article being ready for the peer review process, turning it into production and reaching the publication stage smoothly. Please take some time to read and follow the steps. We declare that we will support you at every stage, our contact information (e-mail and whatsapp) in this regard is on our website. Do not hesitate to contact us.

This journal uses the Dergipark Journal System. This system is an academic journal software developed by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey and is still being developed. Please read the guide for Dergipark Journal System authors before making a submission. The complete instructions for preparing your article and submitting it to RMD are given below.

About the RMJ

Rast Musicology Journal (orginal title Rast Müzikoloji Dergisi) is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes original research with high quality and potential for impact. Please read RMJ's Aims & Scope and Peer Review Policy statements. Please note that this journal only publishes articles in English and Turkish.

RMJ only accepts articles such as: original articles.

RMJ has chosen the Open Access model to reach the real audience, increase the visibility, attribution and readability of your articles, and make scientific knowledge a common commodity for all humanity, rather than just a high-income commodity for developed countries or an elite. You can read statements about this Open Access Policy.

Peer Review and Ethics

RMJ and its affiliated publishing house, Genç Bilge Publishing, declare their commitment to peer review with high ethical standards. Your article will go through Editorial Prereview after Similarity Report review (must be below 15%), pre-review of ethical committee permissions. This is the stage where the decision is made about the suitability and originality of your article for RMJ's Aims & Scope. This is how your article is ready for peer review by independent and field experts. In line with RMJ's Peer Review Policy statements, peer review is carried out quickly and efficiently, with minimum deficiencies, maximum ethical sensitivity.

Please note that before submitting your article to the Rast Müzikoloji Dergisi; to prepare your Similarity Reports (you can use Turnitin, Ithenticate software), Ethics Committee Permissions, Cover Letter, Conflict of Interest, Author Contributions statements in which you claim the originality of your article.

Getting Your Article Ready

Writing Rules

Manuscripts should be written in APA style.

Manuscripts should be submitted in MS Word.

It should be use a normal 11-point Trebuchet MS for text.

All portions of the manuscript must be typed 1,5

Please give short quotations in italics within the quotation marks " " and the page number cited at the end in parentheses.

Please note that long quotations should be indented without quotation marks.

Article Sections and Order

Abstract (Abstract should be written with 8 font size, Trebuchet MS, justified, single line spacing. The objective, method, and findings are summarized in this section and included in 350-400 words)

Keywords (11 font size) this section should contain 5 words that are written in 10 font size and separated with commas, full italic and all lower case including names.

Introduction (included in literature review, conceptual framework, importance)

Heading 1 (11 font size, bold)

Heading 2 (10 font size, evert first letter capital)

Heading 3 ( 10 font size, only first word first letter capital)

Problem of Study (Main and sub-problems)

Method (included in Research Model, Documents or Participants-Sampling, Data Collection Tools, Data Analysis, Procedure)

Results (It should be presented depending on the research problem)

set your figure here.

Figure 1. Type your caption here

Table 1. Type your title here.

set your table here

set your notes here.

Notes 1. Type your caption here

Figures or Pictures: Figures should be high quality (1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for color, at the correct size).

Discussion (Up-to-date citations from quality journals and original articles in important indexes should be given)

Conclusion (Must be at least one page, present the entire article in summary)

Recommendations ( For Researchers and For Applicants)

Limitations of Study (Present the limitations of your research, generalization problems)

Acknowledgements (Thanks, support funds, permissions, conflict interests, authors' contributions should be written in this section)

Biodata of Authors (Photo, name-surname, graduated schools, important studies, specialties, academic social media links; Like Researchgate, AcademicEdu)

References (It should be meticulously written in accordance with APA style, checked, not self-citation)

Appendix (It should be placed after the reference)

Page Limit (A typical paper for this journal should be no more than 35 pages, inclusive of: Appendix)

References

The References section is one of the most important parts of the article. Please prepare it in accordance with the APA style, with 11 points and 1.5 spacing.

Copyright

Copyrights of all published contents (text and visual materials) belong to the journal. No payment is done for manuscripts under the name of copyright or others approved for publishing in the journal and no publication cost is charged. To promote the development of global Open Access (Please read: Read the Budapest Open Access Initiative) to scientific information and research, the Publisher/Owner of the RMJ provides copyrights of all online published papers (except where otherwise noted) for free use of readers, scientists, and institutions (such as link to the content or permission for its download, distribution, printing, copying, and reproduction in any medium, without any changing and except the commercial purpose), under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) International License, provided the original work is cited. To get permission for commercial purposes please contact the publisher/owner of the Rast Musicology Journal.

Content Access

Rast Musicology Journal is an open-access journal.

Plagiarism-Similarity Report

Rast Musicology Journal requests Plagiarism-Similarity Report for uploaded articles. Similarity acceptability is 15%. Turnitin and Ithenticate software should be used for old receivables of plagiarism reports.

Article Support Center (Young Wise) Services

You can benefit from the services of the Article Support Center to develop your manuscript and make it ready for submission. You can visit the website for services such as editing, translation and proofreading.

Checklist for Submit an Article

Author Information Details and Records to Dergipark Journal System: Please check that all authors have registered with the Dergipark Journal System before submitting an article. Please note that the ORCID of each author will be requested by the Dergipark Journal System during registration. Therefore, do not forget to register the ORCID beforehand. Authors are registered to the system only after they approve the verification emails sent by the system. We recommend that authors fill out their profiles in the Dergipark Journal System completely.

Cover Letter: Do not forget to prepare the Cover Letter stating the ethical elements, originality and other aspects of your work.

Copyright Transfer Agreement Form: This form is requested to be uploaded while submitting the articles of the authors. Download the form by clicking this link, make sure that all authors have signatures.

Similarity (Plagiarism) Report: You can use software such as Turnitin, Ithenticate for this report. Note that the similarity rate must be less than 15%.

Keywords: Identify up to five key words. Make sure that keywords are effective and discoverable.

Ethics Committee Permission: If your research is a research that requires ethics committee approval, this permission must be obtained and uploaded during the article submit process.

Figure, Photos: Please upload the high resolution files of the figures and photos in the Manuscript separately during the submission.

Data Sharing: To allow other researchers to use the data you use in your research, or for transparency, use the infrastructure of internationally supporting organizations and indicate this in the manuscript.

Submitting Your Article

Submission of your article is done through Dergipark Journal System. This system is a software where all records are kept, article progress reports can be created, and the corresponding author can submit it on his own. The article submission steps are quite easy. However, due to the software, you may not be able to click the confirmation button in the pop-up that appears at the last stage, you may need to adjust your computer's settings or use another computer for this.

You can always get help during the submission process by using the contact information on our website. Please make sure that all authors are registered in the system beforehand and complete the submit process.

Publication Charges

There are no submission fees, publication fees or page charges for this journal.

Article Processing Charge

There is article processing charge for RMJ. Please look Price Policy page.

Queries

If you have any queries, please contact with us (rastjournaleditor@gmail.com and whatsapp number).

Updated 30th December 2022

Rast Müzikoloji Dergisi (Rast Musicology Journal: RMJ) follows and accepts the internationally accepted publishing ethical principles and applies them in all its processes. In particular, the journal team (publisher, editors, reviewers etc), about the accumulation and experiences of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) over the years, participates in discussions, shares and sets good examples in order to educate itself.

RMJ has determined ethic statements based on Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editor, Core Practices and Guidelines. These ethical principles must be followed by all stakeholders of RMJ (publisher, editors, reviewers, authors). RMJ is responsible for constantly updating its ethical principles and publication policies, and all stakeholders are responsible for being aware of and complying with these updated principles and policies.

We can list these principles as follows;

• Makes and implements editorial prevention against variants of Plagiarism containing all scientific definitions.
  

• In addition to the concept of Plagiarism in scientific research, RMJ takes all necessary actions and measures editorially in cases such as theft of any part of a copyrighted musical work in the rate specified in the laws, as well as the concept of Plagiarism in scientific research.

• Requests documents for Ethical Committee Permissions from authors during the article submission process.

• It requests the permission of the music researcher for the use (if necessary) of the musical works used in their research, and a statement that the work has not changed its original form.

• Strictly examines the unethical behaviors of authors such as self-citation during the article pre-review and article review process. Considers the rate of 5% in self-citiation

• Strictly scrutinizes ethical concerns such as "ghost author".

• In the editorial processes, it never takes into account the requirements of the authors to publish their postgraduate thesis and the need to meet the publication conditions for their academic promotions.

• It examines the data in cases that may cause publication concerns, as ensuring the transparency of the authors.

• It asks academics with editorial duties to undertake not to communicate with authors except during article review processes.

• Editorial boards knows that the quality of RMJ is directly related to its commitment to ethical principles.

• The editorial team is aware that their role in RMJ is not a factor to increase their popularity, each member gives their commitment.

• Collaborates with authors' institutions on ethical issues.

• The increase in indexing and the popularity of the journal never changes its strict adherence to the application of ethical principles.

• The authors, editors, referees and members of the editorial board are informed about compliance with ethical principles and commitments are requested.

• The authors, referees, editors and editorial board members do not know about ethical issues as an excuse, and they are dismissed from RMJ.

• All information brought to the literature, practices, models and experiences by COPE must be known and applied by the stakeholders.

• Regarding the hesitation experienced in practices related to ethical problems; Under the chairmanship of the chief editor, the RMJ Ethics Unit (REU), which consists of 4 members of the editorial board and 5 people in total (determined by privacy policy), undertakes the task of consulting. In order to increase the accuracy of its decisions, the REU should seek advice from institutions that work with international ethical issues.

• The concept of double-bilinded peerreview is made a fact by choosing independent and expert reviewers with all its details, it is never left in discourse, it is applied. For this case, the review process reports recorded in the Dergipark Journal System are always available as proof/evidence.

• RMJ fulfills all legal obligations of copyright laws (for Turkish music research in Turkey, in the relevant country where each researcher conducts music research) for the protection of art (music) products, which are inherent in music research, and for art (music) works, open to all its stakeholders, agrees to make transparent and impartial ethical sanctions.

• RMJ cooperates with its sponsors (congress, non-governmental organizations, societies) to contribute to the development of its researcher network and, in particular, to its vision of increasing the visibility and prevalence of Turkish music research around the world. This is never intended for commercial concern in the process.

Now let's explain some of the basics for authors, reviewers and editors.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism the unethical act of copying someone else’s prior ideas, processes, results or words without explicit acknowledgement of the original author and source. Self-plagiarism occurs when an author utilizes large part of his/her own previously published work without using appropriate references. This can range from getting the same manuscript published in multiple journals to modifying a previously published manuscript with some new data.

Types of Plagiarism

Full Plagiarism: Previously published content without any changes to the text, idea and grammar is considered as full plagiarism. It involves presenting exact text from a source as one’s own.

Partial Plagiarism: If content is a mixture from multiple different sources, where the author has extensively rephrased text, then it is known as partial plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism: When an author reuses complete or portions of their pre-published research, then it is known as self-plagiarism. Complete self-plagiarism is a case when an author republishes their own previously published work in a new journal.

Measures, Obligations and Responsibilities of RMJ

Rast Musicology Journal (RMJ) is strictly against any unethical act of copying or plagiarism in any form. Plagiarism is said to have occurred when large portions of a manuscript have been copied from existing previously published resources. All manuscripts submitted for publication to RMJ are cross-checked for plagiarism using Turnitin/ iThenticate software.

Procedure

RMJ meticulously requests and checks plagiarism reports from authors for their article submissions (Similarity over 15% is unacceptable). Papers found to be plagiarized during initial stages of review are out-rightly rejected and not considered for publication in the journal. In case a manuscript is found to be plagiarized after publication, the Editor-in-Chief/Managing Editor will conduct preliminary investigation, may be with the help of a suitable committee constituted for the purpose. If the manuscript is found to be plagiarized beyond the acceptable limits, the journal will contact the author’s Affiliation (University, Institute) and Funding Agency, if any. A determination of misconduct will lead RMJ to run a statement bidirectionally linked online to and from the original paper, to note the plagiarism and provide a reference to the plagiarized material. The paper containing the plagiarism will also be marked on each pages. This situation is conveyed to the relevant unit (REU) in a report.

Figure 1. Plagiarism Intervention Flow Chart (Adapted from COPE)

Plagiarism Concern Status: RMJ respects intellectual-artistic property and aims at protecting and promoting original work of its authors. Manuscripts containing plagiarized material are against the standards of quality, research and innovation. Hence, all authors submitting articles to RMJ are expected to abide ethical standards and abstain from plagiarism, in any form.

Author(s) Request for Defense: In case, an author is found to be suspected of plagiarism in a submitted or published manuscript then, RMJ shall contact the author (s) to submit his / her (their) explanation within two weeks, which may be forwarded to the REU constituted for the purpose, for further course of action. If RMJ does not receive any response from the author within the stipulated time period, then the director of authors’ affiliations to which the author is affiliated shall be contacted to take strict action against the concerned author.

Ethics Unit Report Preparation: REU prepares a report containing the opinions and evidences of the plagiarism case by taking the defenses of the authors. He gives this report to the chief-managing editor.

Article Related Sanction: RMJ shall take serious action against published manuscripts found to contain plagiarism and shall completely remove them from RMJ journal website (https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/rastmd) and other third party websites where the paper is listed and indexed. The moment, any article published in RMJ database is reported to be plagiarized, RMJ will constitute a REU to investigate the same. Upon having established that the manuscript is plagiarized from some previously published work, RMJ shall support the original author and manuscript irrespective of the publisher and may take any or all of the following immediate actions or follow the additional course of actions as recommended by the committee:

RMJ shall remove the PDF copy of the published manuscript from the website (https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/rastmd) and disable all links to full text article. The term Plagiarized Manuscript shall be appended to the published manuscript title. RMJ shall disable the author account with the journal and reject all future submissions from the author for a period of 3 years or even ban the authors permanently. RMJ may also display the list of such authors along with their full contact details on the RMJ website. (https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/rastmd)

Sanction on Authors: RMJ editorial office shall immediately contact the Head of the Affiliations to which the author(s) is (are) affiliated to take strict action against the concerned author(s).

Human Participants and Vulnerable Populations

Rast Musicology Journal (RMJ) is committed to protecting the rights and psychological well-being of all individuals participating in music research. It should be made clear that research involving human participants and subjects is conducted with informed consent forms and that there are no risks and potential strains to the subjects. Therefore, researchers are required to obtain Ethics Committee Permissions on these issues. Groups that are considered as vulnerable populations are people who are at great risk in terms of poor physical and social health. This group may be less skilled in anticipating, coping with, resisting and escaping a danger. RMJ draws on sources such as the Declaration of Helsinki and The Belmont Report, worldwide legal regulations on human research and vulnerable populations, to create its ethical statements. Genc Bilge (Young Wise) Publishing; publisher of RMJ, follows guidelines from publishers worldwide (e.g. Clarivate) and ethical organizations (e.g. COPE).

Music Researchers (RMJ' authors) adhere to legal regulations in the planning, conduct and reporting processes while conducting their research involving human participants and vulnerable populations. It conducts its research by adhering to the above-mentioned reports and guidelines. Since the group with musicians, music trainees also carries potential obstacles and risks (such as emotional sensitivity, disability), it should adhere to the following points;

* Uses an informed consent form and adheres to universal ethical principles regarding the preparation of this form.
* Protects the personal privacy of human participants and their right to self-determination within research.
* Adheres to national, international and regional legal regulations in its research.
* Ensures that research is undertaken to minimize potential risk and harm, and any risk to provide potential benefits for the participant.
* Adheres to the principles of justice for human participants and vulnerable populations during the research process.

All stakeholders of RMJ in the editorial process (such as publishers, editors, referees) must behave in strict adherence to ethical codes and principles regarding human participants and vulnerable populations.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of All Stakeholders Related to Editorial Processes

In the creation of this section, the scientific knowledge of ethic issues, experiences of editors and experiences of Scopus and Web of Science, which are the most important indexes of the world, in the field of academic publishing were used. We also inform our stakeholders such as authors, referees and editors that we are committed to all ethical principles they have stated and agreed upon.

Duties of Publisher

• RMJ is open access academic journal, and Genç Bilge Publishing Ltd (Turkiye) is defined as a “Publisher” .

• The publisher must arrange all information details, publication policies and ethical statements on RMJ's website in accordance with COPE's Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

• The publisher agrees to publish all accepted articles under open-access and CC BY-NC-ND license.

• Publisher never interferes with editorial processes and decisions.

• The publisher never interferes with editorial processes and decisions. The publisher respects the independence of the RMJ' editorial team

• The publisher guarantees to assist the relevant institutions in ethical investigations.

• The publisher guarantees to comply with the publication policies of the RMJ.

Duties of Authors

• The author(s) must be honest and transparent in all the information he gives, such as the originality of his research, author contributions, and funds received.

•  The author(s) should not communicate with the members of the editorial board in any way that may affect the refereeing processes of their article.

• The author should first convey his problems related to the editorial processes to the editor-in-chief/managing editor. It should not engage in an unethical and legally criminal behavior in the face of RMJ's unfair, groundless, and unsubstantiated accusations, such as defaming it in different environments.

• The author(s) should not submit his/her article without being aware of all RMJ's policies and author's guideline. RMJ's advisory and author support units are in charge of this. It does not engage in careless, unconscious and erroneous submit and review processes only for the rapid operation of the publication processes of the article.

• The author(s) must be willing to apply all the details in the authors guideline. They should not enter into a bargain with the editor, as I will do some matters later.

• Author(s) must pay the Article Processing Fee determined by RMJ after their articles are submitted or before the article is reviewed. They know that if the articles are rejected, the fee paid will not be refunded.

• In articles produced from graduate theses, if the research is submitted to RMJ before the graduation of the first author, the thesis supervisor has to submit a statement that they will actively contribute to the article submit and review processes.

• Author(s) give the right to access the research data and to request it when necessary, to the editorial board as stated in the guidelines. In this regard, it complies with the principles of transparency and accountability.

• Plagiarim (similarity) Report presented by author(s) without manipulation. It never uses software that changes words without changing the meaning of quotes from other sources (paraphrasing). Presents an original research that he has constructed in his own sentences.

• It uses software such as Turnitin, Ithenticate to receive Plagiarism reports.

• Author(s) should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication.

• The author acts with fairness and ethical sensitivity in the matter that contributors and non-contributors should be written as article authors or thanked in the Acknowledgment section.

• Knows in which aspects the concept of authorship is valid. Definitely identifies the author's contributions in the Acknowledgment section.

• The author acts within the framework of ethical principles with the relevant institutions in terms of specifying the permissions received by the research process in the article or obtaining separate permission to be specified.

• The Ethical Committee Permission receives the for all research (permission required such as human research) and adds it to the Dergipark Journal System during the article submission process. In the Acknowledgment section, it specifies the date of the decision and the number of decisions.

• All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript.

• If the author discovers something fundamental, serious and inaccurate in his article after the article is published, he notifies the editor. This puts the author under an important responsibility. Options to retract or publishing of correct paper are implemented with editorial cooperation. It can never exhibit a behavior such as avoiding cooperation in this process.

• The author is responsible for controlling which indexes the RMD is indexed while submitting their article. The do not engage in unnecessary dialogue with the editor or publisher about whether the published article is included in the database of any index.

Duties of the Editors

• Editors are responsible for examining all ethical aspects of a submitted article. They cannot assign this responsibility to someone else, forget or ignore it.

•  It also receives and controls the plagiarism (similarity) report that the authors upload while submitting the article, and does not delegate this task to an assistant or anyone else.

• The selection of editorial board members invited to RMJ does not take into account bias and self-interest.

• It notifies the author of its decision for the decision-making time limits for an article. Cannot engage in unethical behavior such as careless, indifferent and unnecessary waiting towards the author.

• Editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political views- philosophy of the authors.

• The editor should not share the knowledge of the review processes of an article with anyone. Information and documents should have a strict attitude in terms of confidentiality.

• The editor cannot use the idea or material in a submitted article for his own research-studies.

• If there is a conflict of interest with the author in a submitted article, the editor should directly request that this article be assigned to another editor.

• The editor meticulously plays a critical role in conducting an investigation between the publisher and the author's institutions regarding any ethical problem.

• The editor is involved in uncovering ethical problems about an author, even if it was published years ago.

• When one of the RMJ editors submits an article to RMJ, his editorial duty is canceled. By appointing another editor as the editor, the review process is carried out impartially.

• RMJ editors have to follow COPE's experiences and shares, and attend in-service trainings offered by platforms such as the Web of Science Academy to improve their editorial skills.

• Editors reflect accurate information on RMJ's indexing status on the website. However, editors are not responsible to anyone for situations that may occur, such as profile page updates on indexes' own websites.

Duties of Reviewers

• The reviewer should be aware that it is a very influential factor in the development of the article and the editor's decision.

• Knows that the minimum requirement for refereeing is to obtain a doctorate degree.

• When the reviewer feels inadequate to evaluate an article, they should ask for another reviewer to be assigned to the article.

• Reviewer should not discuss the information and ideas in an article they are reviewing with others.

• The reviewer should not use derogatory, commanding or humiliating expressions in his comments about the article. Should not criticize the author inappropriately. While expressing their views, they should support them with arguments.

• RMJ's review form is very detailed. This form has been prepared to include all the details of the article. The reviewer should not be in the act of filling in the fields that need to be filled in this form in a short and vague manner such as "it is appropriate, good".

• The reviewer should check whether the author has deliberately or mistakenly cited to any source in the literature, and the editor should warn about this issue.

• The reviewer should check whether the author does self-citiation, dominate the author's own work or a research group's work in the academic community, cite biasedly, and popularize it, and report this situation to the editor with its arguments.

• The reviewer should notify the editor of the eligibility for his appointment and when he can review the article. It should not act recklessly to interfere with the journal's workflow and to waste the valuable time of the author.

Updated 14th April 2023

Article Processing Charge Articles that apply to the RMJ academic journal are taken in pre-review stage. Pre-review is done by the editorial board. Articles that do not have the necessary permissions, whose plagiarism report is negative and that are outside the coverage of the journal are rejected. Then, the Article Review Process starts, where there are at least two referees and blind. The decision to publish is taken for those who are successful in the referee process. All articles published in RMJ are open access and freely available online, immediately upon publication. This is made possible by an article-processing charge (APC) that covers the range of publishing services we provide. This includes provision of online tools for editors and authors, reviewers, editors and reviewers progress payments, article copyediting, production and hosting, layout editing, liaison with abstracting and indexing services, and customer services. As a matter of ethics, Article Processing Charge is paid when the article is uploaded to the journal management system by the author. No editorial evaluation and review process is initiated without payment. This payment does not indicate that the article uploaded by the author will certainly be published. This payment is only related to the article processing process. As per the resolution passed by Turkish Higher Education Council at the General Assembly dated March 03, 2019, an article published in RMJ can be included in the applications (declaration) for associate professorship since the journal falls under the clause of "Journals that charge fees -regardless of acceptance/rejection condition- during application". “Türkiye Yükseköğretim Kurulu’nun 07.03.2019 tarihli Genel Kurulunda aldığı karar gereği, RMJ'de de yayınlanan bir makale Makale başvuru sırasında -kabul/red kararına bağlı olmaksızın ücret alan dergiler, maddesini karşıladığından doçentlik başvurularında (beyannamede) kullanılabilir.” Article Processing Charge 5250 TL for Turkey, 500 GBP other countries. . Subscription for per year: 1500 TL for Turkey, 100 GBP other countries. Note: RMJ, reserves the right to offer discounts or no Article Processing Fees for certain associations, foundations, universities, countries, institutions and authors. Note: An additional layout fee of 750 TL is charged for articles exceeding 30 pages. Updated July 21, 2023