EDITORIAL POLICY
The Turkish Journal of Forestry (TurkJFor) is an open-access and peer-reviewed journal that has adopted the "Continuous Publication" model as of 2026. The journal prioritizes original research articles in the fields of Forest Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Forest Industrial Engineering, and Wildlife Ecology and Management, while also publishing a limited number of review articles.
The submission process begins when the author(s) upload the study via DergiPark. Authors are required to submit a Copyright Form with a wet-ink signature or a secure electronic signature during the submission stage. Manuscripts submitted without a copyright form will not be considered for evaluation. Along with the "Copyright Form," the "Author Declaration Form" must also be uploaded to the system. All studies submitted to the journal undergo a Preliminary Control (Pre-check) stage before the peer-review process. During this stage, the manuscript is examined for suitability in terms of objective, scope, methodology, formatting, and ethical principles (similarity rate, etc.). Manuscripts that do not meet the journal's standards are rejected.
All articles submitted to the Turkish Journal of Forestry are evaluated by at least two independent reviewers selected based on their areas of expertise. Our journal follows a "Double-Blind Peer Review" process, where the identities of both authors and reviewers are kept confidential. Before being sent for peer review, articles go through a "Preliminary Control" stage. The final decision is made by the Editor and Section Editors based on the reviewers' opinions.
For manuscripts accepted for publication, the accuracy of the bibliography, citation control, and the scientific validity of the data are entirely the responsibility of the author(s). The journal reserves the right to make formal and grammatical corrections to the published works without altering the essence of the content. Publication processes are conducted to ensure that works are evaluated, improved, and published in an impartial, reputable, and rigorous manner.
OPEN ACCESS POLICY
Our journal is a peer-reviewed and fully open-access journal. In this context, it is a signatory to the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI). According to the BOAI, Open Access is defined as:
“The free availability of peer-reviewed scholarly literature on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself”
PUBLICATION FEE POLICY
The Turkish Journal of Forestry does not charge authors any fees at any stage of the article submission, evaluation, or publication processes. The journal does not charge any Article Processing Charges (APCs).
PUBLICATION ETHICS
The fundamental principles of our journal's editorial policy are to be objective, honest, transparent, and impartial at every stage of research and publication, and to act in accordance with ethical rules. Our journal has prepared a guide containing ethical rules for editors, authors, and reviewers. The Turkish Journal of Forestry adopts the general publication principles of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). In accordance with COPE's recommendations and general publication requirements, Editors, Authors, and Reviewers must adhere to the following responsibilities:
Responsibilities of Editors
1. Impartiality: The Editor must ensure an unbiased evaluation of all manuscripts submitted for publication, without discrimination based on race, religion, gender, nationality, or similar factors.
2. Accountability: Editors must take responsibility for every article, whether published or not. In the event of a rejection, they must communicate with the author and clearly state the reasons for the decision.
3. Ethical Oversight: Editors must monitor manuscripts for compliance with scientific ethical rules and reject any work found to involve unethical behavior.
4. Peer Review Management: Editors shall send suitable manuscripts to at least two reviewers for scientific evaluation while keeping author information confidential. When selecting reviewers, they must make an objective choice among independent scientists appropriate to the field of expertise.
5. Quality Control of Reviews: Editors must screen peer review reports from a scientific perspective and ensure that an objective evaluation has been conducted. Inconsistent or biased reviews should be disregarded, and such reviewers should not be given further evaluation opportunities.
6. Handling Post-Publication Critiques: Editors must consider consistent and evidence-based critiques regarding previously published articles and issue the necessary notices or corrections.
7. Transparency in Communication: Editors must maintain clear and transparent communication with authors. They must convey reviewer comments while keeping the reviewers' identities confidential and clearly explain the expectations from the author.
8. Adherence to Policy: Editors must act in accordance with the fundamental principles of the journal's editorial and publication policy.
Responsibilities of Authors
1. Ethical Compliance: Authors must adhere to ethical principles in their scientific publications, such as avoiding plagiarism and "salami-slicing" (salamisization), and must act in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
2. Integrity and Honesty: Authors must present their scientific publications clearly, honestly, and without any fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
3. Citations: Authors must provide necessary and accurate citations for all referenced work in their scientific publications.
4. Methodological Transparency: Authors should strive to define their methods clearly and explicitly so that their findings can be verified by others.
5. Originality: The work submitted by authors must be original and must not have been published elsewhere.
6. Collective Responsibility: Authors must collectively assume responsibility for their published work.
7. Authorship Criteria: Authors should be determined based on their actual contribution to the study. "Ghost" authors (who contributed but are not listed), "guest" authors (who did not contribute significantly but increase the chance of publication), and "gift" authors (with minimal contribution) must not be included in the author list.
8. Conflict of Interest: Authors must declare to the editor that there are no conflicts of interest in the published article or disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may be relevant.
Responsibilities of Reviewers
1. Competence: If reviewers do not possess sufficient knowledge to evaluate the manuscript submitted for scientific review, they must return the manuscript without conducting an evaluation.
2. Objectivity: Reviewers must act in an impartial, honest, and objective manner.
3. Conflict of Interest: Upon identifying a conflict of interest, reviewers must notify the editor and return the manuscript.
4. Confidentiality: Reviewers must maintain strict confidentiality during the evaluation process and after the publication of the article.
5. Constructive Criticism: Reviewers must avoid personal criticism; they should state their critiques clearly and in detail, providing informative feedback that assists the editor in the decision-making process.
6. Originality Check: Reviewers must investigate the originality of the manuscript they are reviewing.
7. Ethical Compliance: Reviewers must monitor the manuscript's compliance with scientific ethical norms.
In addition, if reviewers detect any situation in the study's methodology or findings that could pose a negative impact on plant, animal, or human health during the scientific evaluation process, they must inform the editor immediately.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
Authors
According to the general publication principles of the Turkish Journal of Forestry, only individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the relevant study should be considered as authors. Authors are responsible for disclosing all personal and financial relationships that could potentially lead to a conflict of interest regarding their work.
Reviewers
Reviewers are responsible for declining the peer-review process in the event of any conflict of interest. Should reviewers have any doubts regarding a potential conflict of interest, they must consult the editor concerning the evaluation process.
Editors
Editors are responsible for managing the peer-review process of manuscripts and reserve the right to reject a relevant manuscript in the case of any conflict of interest. Editors must not have any personal and/or financial conflicts of interest with the manuscripts they are assigned to. If an editor is included in the author list of a submitted manuscript, they are excluded from the evaluation process of that specific manuscript.
PLAGIARISM CHECK
As of January 2017, all manuscripts submitted to our journal are screened using iThenticate® plagiarism detection software. Based on the similarity report generated by the software, the editorial board decides whether the manuscript will proceed to peer review or be rejected immediately.
ETHICS COMMITTEE APPROVAL
In accordance with TR Index (TR Dizin) criteria, if the submitted study falls within the scope of research requiring ethics committee approval, it is mandatory to submit the Ethics Committee Approval Certificate during the submission process.
The approval document must clearly state the name of the institution, the date of approval, and the decision/reference number. Studies submitted without a valid ethics committee approval will be rejected.
USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS
AI cannot replace the author's original academic contribution and cannot be listed as an "Author." In the event of AI usage, the specific stage of the process and the tools used must be clearly disclosed in the "Author Declaration Form."
COPYRIGHT ARRANGEMENT
Authors who publish their articles in this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Retainment of Copyright: The author retains the copyright of the article and grants the journal the right of first publication. The article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows others to share the work, provided that the author is credited and the initial publication in this journal is acknowledged.
2. Distribution Rights: The author may enter into separate contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., posting it to an institutional repository or publishing it in a book).
3. Pre-publication Sharing: Authors are encouraged to share their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their own websites) prior to and during the submission process; this can lead to productive exchanges of ideas as well as earlier and greater citation of the published work (see The Effect of Open Access).
DOI INFORMATION
A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number is assigned to all articles published in the Turkish Journal of Forestry.
