Sketch: Journal of City and Regional Planning

SKETCH: The Journal of City and Regional Planning is a peer reviewed journal e-published twice a year on every June and December, addressing issues on planning and design of the built environment in various scales, emphasizing the interfaces between urban and regional planning, policy, design and management through a wide and interdisciplinary approach.

The aim of the Journal is to gather a wide range of innovative studies on the advancements and discussions, to promote further research in specific issues on planning and design of the built environment, and to provide an international and interdisciplinary platform for theoretical and research papers that make significant contributions to the understanding, practice, and education on planning and design of built environment. The Journal also encourages an approach to research in planning and design that will close the gap between the well-established theory and diverse practice throughout the world.

The Journal seeks to widen the limits of planning and design of built environment by motivating the submission of manuscripts from both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives.

Authors are encouraged to submit original, unpublished manuscripts for publications within the spatial, social, economic and environmental aspects of subject areas on planning and design, including, but not limited to the following issues and related interdisciplinary topics;
• Planning Law and Regulations
• Legal and institutional Framework
• Property Rights and Development
• Regional Planning, Regional Studies
• Rural Settlements and Rural Planning
• Infrastructure Management
• Transportation Planning and Design
• Urban Conservation
• Urban History and Urban Archaeology
• Urban Ecology
• Sustainable Development and Sustainable Settlements
• Urban Aesthetics and Townscape
• Urban Development and Management
• Design Control and Guidance
• Practice and Implementation
• Heritage and Identity Studies
• Urban Morphology, Urban Structure and Form
• Urban Regeneration
• Urban Planning and Design Education

Authors from all relevant academic fields are invited to submit high-quality articles for contributing to the development of knowledge in urban planning and design.

Authors must follow these instructions carefully to avoid delays in submission, peer-review and publication processes.

1. Submission of manuscripts

The Journal accepts submissions in English or Turkish.  Submitted manuscripts for publication should be based on a research and adopt a critical approach to the development of arguments on a wide range of subjects related with city and regional planning.  

The Journal constitutes original articles including theoretical papers, original research papers, applied studies related to professional practices and educational works; viewpoints and book reviews.

Translations of other authors’ works are not accepted.

Authors should submit manuscripts online by using Online Submission System. Manuscripts, which are not submitted using the online system, will not be considered for publication.

The submitted manuscript should be original, has not been formally published elsewhere and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere; and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights.

Editorial Board claims no responsibility for the opinions expressed in the published manuscripts.

2. Preparation of the Articles

The article must be prepared by following the order of title page, abstract, keywords, text including tables and figures, acknowledgement (if any), references in one single Word document. The manuscript must be typed in 1,5 spacing by using Arial font with 12 points. All pages must be numbered consecutively.

2.1. Title Page

The title page must contain a concise and informative title; name(s), affiliation(s) (department, faculty, university, city and country) and e-mail address(es) of author(s). Please identify the corresponding author, if there is.

2.2. Abstract

All articles should have a concise and informative abstract in English. Manuscripts in Turkish should also have an abstract in Turkish. Abstract must not exceed 250 words in length, must summarize the purpose, methods and major findings of the paper.

2.3. Keywords

The article must have maximum 5 keywords in both languages which must be separated by comma. Keywords must be carefully selected to facilitate the readers’ search and sorted according to the importance.

2.4. Text

Text must have minimum 5.000 words and must not exceed 10.000 words. All headings must be numbered consecutively and hierarchically. Authors, for whose English is not the native language, are strongly encouraged to have their articles carefully edited prior to submission. Also, authors are recommended to perform spell checking of the text. Within the article, footnotes could be used if necessary and they should be labelled as (1), (2) and listed at the end of the page where they occur.

2.5. Preparation of Tables and Figures

Tables and figures must be embedded in the article in their original places. Figures and tables must be indicated within the text in brackets.

Tables and figures must be consecutively numbered throughout the article and must have a brief informative caption and reference, if there. The caption must be provided before the table and written in “Table 1. Name of the table” format. If necessary, explanatory footnotes must be brief, placed beneath the table and indicated by (*).Figures must be named as “Figure 1. Name of the figure” format and the caption must be provided under the figure. Figures could be in grayscale, in black-and-white or colour with minimum 200 dpi resolution in jpeg format.

2.6. Symbols, abbreviations and conventions

Symbols, abbreviations and conventions in papers must follow the recommended SI Units. Abbreviations must be defined in brackets after their first mention in the text in accordance with internationally agreed rules.

2.7. Mathematical expressions

Mathematical symbols and formulae must be typed and any other application or program must not be used. Particular care must be exercised in identifying all symbols and avoiding ambiguities. Distinction must be made between the number one (1) and letter (I) and between the number (0) and the letter (O). Equation numbers must appear in parentheses and numbered consecutively. All equation numbers must appear on the right hand side of the equation and must be referred to within the text.

2.8. Acknowledgement

If necessary, acknowledgements can be provided at the end of the text as a separate section.

2.9. References

The style and punctuation of the references must follow the APA referencing style. References in the manuscript must give the surname of the author, the year of publication and page number, if given, in brackets. The references must be listed in alphabetical order of authors’ names and in chronological order for each author. The upper and lower case rules and punctuation types of APA style must be carefully followed. Further details about APA referencing style can be seen from http://www.apastyle.org/.

Some examples of reference citation are given below:

Books
Author, A. (2014). Title of the book. London: Mitchell.

Journals
Author, A. A., Author, B. (2012). Title of the article. Title of Journal, 12(4), 187–195.

Conference Proceedings

 Author, A. A., Author, B. (2014). Title of paper. Paper presented at the meeting of Organization Name, Location.

Thesis
Author, A. A. (2008). Title of thesis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation or master's thesis). Name of Institution, Location.

Websites
The BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk)

Author, A. (2011). Title of document [Format description]. Retrieved from http://URL

Reports
Author, A. A. (2012). Title of work. (Report No. 123). Location: Publisher.
Author, A. A. (2012). Title of work.(Report No. 123). Retrieved from Name website: http://www.xxxxxxxx.pdf

3. Book Reviews

A book review must be between 500-1.000 words, which indicates the scope for an assessment of the book and its contribution to knowledge and discussion within the broad field of architecture, planning and design. Reviews must be typed in double spacing by using Arial font with 12 points. Name, affiliation and e-mail address of the reviewer must be given. A photograph of the book cover must be provided in jpeg format within the text. The title, author, origin, publisher, date, number of pages and ISBN number must be provided as in the following example.

Name of the Book

Author, 1985

City: Publisher

XX pp

Paperback

ISBN 0-111-1111-1111

4. Peer Review Process

The Editorial Board is the first to see the submitted manuscript. Being subject to initial appraisal by Editorial Board and if found suitable for further consideration; submitted manuscript run through peer review process. Editorial Board may sometimes reject manuscripts without peer review process to make the best use of their resources.

The Journal masks the identities of both the authors and referees and operates double blind process. Submitted manuscripts are reviewed by two referees before publication. There exist four possible outcomes for each manuscript submitted and reviewed: acceptance, acceptance after minor revision, major revision and re-submission, or rejection.

Following the peer review process, Editorial Board looks over the referees’ comments. If two referees seem to hold opposite opinions, the controversy is resolved by Editorial Board. Editorial Board may assign third referee to resolve the controversy, or Editorial Board may give the final decision as being one of the aforementioned possibilities: acceptance, acceptance with noted changes, or rejection of the paper.

Referees are chosen by Editorial Board. Authors may also suggest up to three referee names and contacts while submitting the manuscript. 

5. Publishing Agreement and Plagiarism

The Journal requires the principle author - as the rights holder, to sign the Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement, which is an exclusive license agreement stating that the author retains copyright in the work, but grants the Journal the sole and exclusive right and license to publish for the full legal term of copyright.

Manuscripts to be published appear Ahead of e-Print as soon as they are ready to be published. Ahead of e-print articles are fully citable using the DOI system.

All manuscripts are checked with ITHENTICATE. Author(s) are responsible about the content of the manuscripts. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission from authors and publishers of any previously published material; text, tables, figures, etc.

6. Publication charges

There is no submission and page fee for the Journal.

Open Access

SKETCH: The Journal of City and Regional Planning is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Copyright and Licensing

The submission of manuscripts to the Journal must be approved by all authors who acknowledge that the copyright is transferred to Head of the Department of City and Regional Planning, Mersin University if the manuscript is accepted for publication, and the article cannot be published elsewhere in the same or any other language without consent.

The Journal requires the author(s) to sign the Copyright Transfer Form and upload to the System while submitting the manuscript.

All manuscripts published in the Journal are licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). It is free to use, share and distribute the content for non-commercial purposes by citing the manuscript.

Plagiarism Control

All submissions are subject to investigation in terms of plagiarism and / or unethical situations by the editorial office. All manuscripts are checked with Plagiarism Detection Service iThenticate. Authors are responsible about the content of the manuscripts. Editorial Board claims no responsibility for the opinions expressed in the published manuscripts. It is the author(s) responsibility to obtain written permission from authors and publishers of any previously published material, text, tables, figures, etc.

Publication Charges

There is no submission and page fee for the Journal. The Journal does not charge any article submission, article-editorial processing or publication charges. All submission, editorial and publication processes are conducted free of charge.

There is no submission and page fee for the Journal. The Journal does not charge any article submission, article-editorial processing or publication charges. All submission, editorial and publication processes are conducted free of charge.