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Authors are encouraged to submit original, unpublished manuscripts for publications within the spatial, social, economic and environmental aspects of subject areas on planning and design, including, but not limited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 and to use templates to avoid delays in submission, peer-review and publication processes.

Links for templates: 

• Title Page File 
• Full Text File 
• Copyright Form File 
• Response to Reviewers File 

1. Submission of manuscripts

The Journal accepts submissions in English (British 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 research articles including theoretical papers, original research papers, applied studies related to professional practices and educational works; reviews; viewpoint articles; technical notes 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.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be read and approved by all authors. The [SJCRP] Copyright Form - Telif Hakkı Formu prepared for this purpose should be uploaded with the manuscript when it is uploaded to the system.

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. Research Article and Review

The article must be prepared by using [SJCRP] Full Text File - Tam Metin file. Authors should follow writing rules indicated within the file.

The article should not contain a concise and informative title; name(s), affiliation(s) (department, faculty, university, city and country) and e-mail address(es) of author(s). All related information should be submitted by using [SJCRP] Title Page - Başlık Sayfası file.

The main text of the article should not include acknowledgments and special notes. Such statements should be specified in the [SJCRP] Title Page - Başlık Sayfası file.

3. Viewpoint Article and Technical Note

Viewpoint articles and technical notes should be between 3,000-5,000 words. Opinion articles and technical notes should follow the rules of article writing and use article writing outline files.

4. Book Review

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. The forms and writing rules used in article writing also apply to book review submissions. 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

5. 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 both referees appointed as advisors agree that the manuscript can be published, the manuscript is placed in the queue to be published in the first issue to be published. If two referees seem to hold opposite opinions, Editorial Board assigns third referee to resolve the controversy, and accordingly Editorial Board gives the final decision as being one of the aforementioned possibilities: acceptance, acceptance with noted changes, or rejection of the paper.

Corrected manuscripts for publication must be submitted by the authors within 30 days at the latest. The author must also upload the [SJCRP] Response to Reviewers - Hakemlere Yanıt file when uploading the corrected manuscript. The full revised manuscript should not contain any annotations or notes of changes. The revised manuscript may be reviewed again by reviewers who request changes. Authors are obliged to take into account the criticism, evaluation and corrections of the referees and the Editorial Board. In case of disagreement, the author should indicate these with the reasons in the [SJCRP] Response to Reviewers - Hakemlere Yanıt file.

6. Publishing Agreement and Plagiarism

The Journal requires the principal 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 by Journal Secretariat. Author(s) are responsible about the content of the manuscripts. Articles with more than 20% similarity will be returned. It is the author’s responsibility to obtain written permission from authors and publishers of any previously published material, text, tables, figures, etc.

7. 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.