The Turkish Journal of Weed Scienceapplies the publication principles foreseen and accepted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), organizations. Furthermore, the Turkish Journal of Weed Scienceapplies the publication principles determined by DergiPark under the umbrella of TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM, where it is located.

Ethical Statement on the Use of Plants and Biological Materials
Authors must state that the collection, use, and trade of all plants and biological materials (seeds, herbarium specimens, etc.) used in this study were carried out in accordance with relevant national and international laws, conventions, and institutional policies. All necessary permits for field studies (for example, from the relevant ministry, forest management, or private landowners) must have been obtained. In the case of using endangered, protected status, or extinct species, authors are required to submit the valid permits or certificates specifically obtained for these species during the article application. Authors will be asked to explicitly declare their compliance with these ethical rules in the 'Article Submission Form'.

Plagiarism and Other Violations
The quality of the submitted data and analyses are important issues for the Turkish Journal of Weed Science. Authors are obliged to provide their data sets upon request from the editors. The journal editors check the text contents for plagiarism and duplication using the relevant software. By submitting their articles to this journal, authors are deemed to have accepted that the article may be subjected to a plagiarism check against previously published works. If plagiarism is detected before publication, the article will be rejected and subjected to the authors' institutional recognition. This information may be sent to the authors' institutions and other relevant organizations. The Turkish Journal of Weed Sciencedoes not accept articles that have been previously submitted to another journal for evaluation and/or previously published. Therefore, authors must ensure and declare in the cover letter that the article is not simultaneously submitted to any other journal. The exception to this rule is oral presentations or posters presented as abstracts at scientific congresses. It should be stated that your article was previously presented as an oral presentation or poster at a scientific congress. This information should be added to the cover page or relevant field in the online article submission system, and details such as the name, date, and place of the congress where the abstract was published must be specified. All ethical, scientific, and legal responsibility of the published studies belongs to the authors. In the review conducted with the plagiarism detection software, articles with a total similarity rate exceeding %xx will be sent back to the author for correction without being evaluated. An article in the process cannot be submitted to or published in another journal.

Declarations and Conflicts of Interest
All financial support sources must be disclosed. All authors should declare whether there was a conflict of interest in the process of creating their work. Any kind of financial grant or other support received for the study from individuals or institutions must be disclosed to the Editorial Board of the Turkish Journal of Weed Science. The ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form must be filled out and submitted by all contributing authors to disclose a potential conflict of interest. The Journal's Editorial Board determines potential conflict of interest situations for editors, authors, or reviewers within the scope of COPE and ICMJE guidelines.
Conditions providing financial or personal gain lead to a conflict of interest. The reliability of the scientific process and published articles is directly related to the objective consideration of conflicts of interest during the planning, implementation, writing, evaluation, editing, and publishing of scientific studies.

Financial relationships are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and it is inevitable that they affect the reputation of the journal, the authors, and science. These conflicts can arise from individual relationships, academic competition, or intellectual approaches. Authors should avoid as much as possible making agreements with sponsors with a view to obtaining gain or any other advantage that restricts their ability to access all the data of the study or to analyze, interpret, prepare, and publish their articles. The editors, who make the final decision on articles, should not have any personal, professional, or financial ties with any of the matters they will decide on. Authors should inform the editorial board about potential conflicts of interest to ensure their article is evaluated within the framework of ethical principles through an independent evaluation process.
If any of the editors is an author in any article, the relevant editor is removed from the article evaluation process. To prevent any conflict of interest, the article evaluation process is conducted as xxxx-blind. Due to the xxx-blind review process, none of the editorial board members, international advisory board members, or reviewers, except the Editor-in-Chief, are informed about the authors of the article or the authors' institutions.
Our publication team works with dedication to ensure the evaluation process is conducted impartially, taking all these situations into consideration.

Authorship and Declaration
We adopt the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors criteria (JAMA. 1997; 277:927-934). For articles with two or more authors, each author must meet the necessary conditions for authorship by having participated actively and sufficiently in the conducted and reported work. The inclusion of each author in an article's author list is based solely on the following grounds:
(1) contributing to the concept and design of the study or the analysis and interpretation of data,
(2) having contributed significantly to the preparation of the article's draft or its critical review for important intellectual content,
(3) approving the final version of the article that is submitted.
All three conditions above must be met. Other individuals who contributed to the work should be acknowledged separately in the Acknowledgements section. In the cover letter accompanying the submitted articles, it should be confirmed that all authors have fulfilled both conditions.
The responsibility for the conformity of articles submitted to our journal with international ethical principles, such as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, salami slicing, gift authorship, ghost authorship, and duplicate publication, belongs to the authors. If such a situation is detected before or after the publication of any research, the article is retracted from the journal.

Editors' Authorship
The peer review process of the Turkish Journal of Weed Scienceis progressed as confidential for all parties. Editors cannot submit their own articles to the journal except for editorial writings, as confidentiality cannot be ensured in the evaluation process. Field editors, however, can submit their own writings to the Turkish Journal of Weed Science. The writings of field editors are subjected to confidential peer review like the articles of other authors. Editors-in-chief and field editors are obliged to report to the Journal management if there is any conflict of interest among themselves. Administrators cannot advise and/or pressure editors regarding writings submitted to the Turkish Journal of Weed Science. Writings should only be submitted for evaluation after obtaining the written approval of all contributing authors. The author list must include all persons who can be included as authors in accordance with the authorship policies of ICMJE and COPE.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Usage Policy for Authors
In line with the principles and recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Turkish Journal of Weed Scienceacknowledges the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools in academic writing and research. However, to ensure transparency, accountability, and integrity, AI usage must comply with ethical publishing standards.
Therefore, authors must adhere to the following rules:

1. Artificial Intelligence Tools Cannot Be Listed as Authors
It follows COPE's view that artificial intelligence tools cannot fulfill the role of author and therefore cannot be listed as an author on any submission. Only individuals meeting the authorship criteria (for example, significant contribution, accountability, and approval of the final version) should be named as authors.

2. Disclosure of AI Usage is Mandatory
"Authors using artificial intelligence tools in the writing of a manuscript, in the creation of the article's images or graphic elements, or in the collection and analysis of data, must transparently declare in the Methods section and in the article's preamble how and which AI tool was used." The following format can be used in the preamble:
"During the preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [Tool Name, e.g., ChatGPT, OpenAI] for [a specific purpose, e.g., language editing, drafting parts of the introduction, summarizing background literature]. After using this tool, the authors reviewed and edited the content as necessary and take full responsibility for the publication's content."
The covert or unethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) can lead to the rejection of the article or the retraction of the published article.
This policy will be periodically reviewed and updated in line with COPE guidance and evolving best practices.
If you have any questions regarding the use of artificial intelligence tools, please contact the editorial office before submitting.

Advertising Policy
The Turkish Journal of Weed Scienceis the periodic, peer-reviewed, open access, scientific official publication of the Turkish Weed Science Society. The journal maintains its publication activities independently from any kind of commercial advertisement or sponsorship agreement in order to protect its academic independence.
All editorial decisions are made solely based on academic standards, scientific value, and a rigorous peer review process, without any commercial or financial influence. The journal operates in accordance with the financial and publication policies of the Turkish Weed Science Society, with a commitment to serving the public good and advancing scientific knowledge.
In line with these principles, the journal does not publish commercial advertisements or sponsored content; it is dedicated solely to the dissemination of academic and scientific materials. Ethical publishing practices and editorial independence are observed at all stages of the publication process.

Appeals and Complaints
Appeal and complaint situations are handled by the journal's Editorial Board within the scope of COPE guidelines. Appeals must be based on the scientific content of the article. The final decision upon appeal and complaint is given by the Editor-in-Chief. Depending on the situation, a mediator or external ethics editor is assigned to resolve situations that cannot be resolved internally. Authors should contact the editor-in-chief regarding their appeals and complaints via the e-mail address turkishweedscience@gmail.com.

Handling Unethical Publishing Behavior
The publisher, in close cooperation with the editors, will take all appropriate measures to modify the article in question in cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fabrication, or plagiarism. This includes, in the most severe case, the prompt publication of a correction, clarification, or retraction of the affected work. The publisher, together with the editors, will take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, and under no circumstances will it encourage or knowingly permit such abuse.

Errors Detected in Published Studies
Authors are obliged to immediately inform the journal's editors or publisher and to cooperate with them to correct or retract the article if significant errors or inaccuracies are detected in the published work. If the editors or publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a material error or inaccuracy, the authors must immediately correct the article or present the justification for retraction to the editorial board, or provide the journal editors with proof of the article's correctness.

Digital Archiving and Preservation Policy
Digital preservation is a set of processes and activities that guarantee the access and distribution to ensure the long-term and continuous access of information found in digital format. The preservation policy includes the following measures:

Website Archiving
All electronic content (website, manuscript, etc.) is stored in different sources. The content on one server is online and open to readers' access. A copy of the same content is stored as a backup. In case of a server failure, the archive is provided from among the other sources.

Abstracting/Indexing Services
Our journal's abstracting/indexing services store basic information about the articles. Also, some abstracting/indexing services archive the metadata about the articles and the electronic versions of the articles. Thereby, copies of the articles are presented to the scientific community through these systems as an alternative to the journals.

Cessation of Publication
If the publication of this journal is ceased, the articles will remain online and will be accessible to readers through third parties and archiving processes as described above. The content will be provided by the journal's editorial board in specific situations, such as the cessation of the publication process.

Authors' Archiving Policy
Abstract and Citation Information
Authors can reuse the abstract and citation information of their articles (for example title, author name, publication dates) including on social media platforms; however, a backlink must be provided to the article on the Turkish Journal of Weed Sciencewebsite as a citation.

Accepted Manuscript
The "accepted manuscript" is the final draft of the author's manuscript, accepted by a journal for publication, before it undergoes copyediting and typesetting, including revisions made according to reviewers' suggestions.
Authors of open access articles have the freedom to publish their articles anywhere and share their links immediately after publication. However, a backlink must be provided to the article on the Turkish Journal of Weed Sciencewebsite as a citation.