NOTE: Due to the high number of Turkish articles that have come to the publishing stage, Turkish articles will not be evaluated until the end of 2025.

WRITING RULES

The titles of the forms required for the article to be uploaded to the journal are given below. Information regarding the details of the forms is given under the title Balıkesir Health Sciences Journal Writing Rules.

FORMS TO BE UPLOADED TO THE SYSTEM:

1) Copyright Transfer and Authorship Approval Form (https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/journal-file/11142)

2) Conflict of Interest Notification Form* (http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/)

3) Ethics Committee Document (Must be signed in wet ink.)

4) Similarity Report (Ithenticate Similarity Index must be below 15%)

5) Title Page (Long article title must be less than 12 words, Short article title must be less than 4 words, Author information, Title, Correspondence addresses, Mobile phone numbers, E-mail addresses, ORCID IDs, responsible author information must be included.)

6) Blinded Full Text (Author, institution information, author contributions and ethics committee institution information are not available)** Click to download the SAMPLE Article Format File.

7) Unblinded Full Text (Author and institution information available) ** Click to download the SAMPLE Article Format File.

*For Conflict of Interest Notification;
• Please download the PDF file https://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/
• After filling out the form, click the "Generate" button on the last page to generate the final report
• Then save and upload to the system.
• ATTENTION! Some browsers will try to open the document when you click the download button and give an error message because the document cannot be displayed by the browser due to its content. It should be opened with Adobe Reader after downloading. For detailed information on opening and filling out the form, as well as an alternative download link, you can visit http://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/.

** All articles sent to our journal must be in sample article format
(1 - Blinded Full Text and 2- Unblinded Full Text as is, 2 pieces).

BALIKESIR JOURNAL OF HEALTH SCIENCES 
WRITING RULES

.
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ICMJE (Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals) (updated December 2015 - http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). Writers should be based on CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) guidelines for randomized research studies, STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology), STARD (the Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy), PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines for observational original research studies and TREND (Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Non-randomised Designs) guidelines for non-randomized behavioral and public health assessments.

Manuscripts can only be submitted via the journal's online submission and evaluation system, https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/journal/2670/submission/step/manuscript/new. Manuscripts sent from any other medium will not be considered.

Checking the compliance of the articles submitted to our journal with the principles and rules to be followed during the preparation of an article, considering the International standards is important for raising the standards of scientific publishing.

The standards that must be followed during the preparation of an article to be sent to the Balıkesir Health Sciences Journal and accepted and implemented by international scientific journals are as follows:

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY

• It is essential that the authors comply with national and international ethical guidelines and obtain permission from the relevant ethical committees for research conducted in humans or animals. Compliance of the articles with scientific and ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors.

Ethics committee permissions are not requested for every article. It is requested for articles that "require ethics committee approval".

Research that requires ethics committee approval;

All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from the participants by using survey, interview, focus group work, observation, experiment, interview techniques,
Use of humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes, Clinical studies in humans,
research on animals,
Retrospective studies in accordance with the personal data protection law
Also;

Indicating that an "Informed Consent Form" was taken in case reports (case analysis), Obtaining and stating permission from the owners for the use of scales, questionnaires, photographs belonging to others,
It should be stated that copyright regulations are complied with for the intellectual and artistic works used.

Click here for the ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FLOW chart.

• Compliance of the articles with scientific and ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors.

• Compliance with the Principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/b3/index.html) is essential in all studies involving the “human” element. In the presence of such studies, the authors should state in the MATERIALS AND METHODS section of the article that they carried out the study in accordance with these principles, that they received ethics committee approval, date and decision number information, and that they received "informed consent" from the people who participated in the study.
Ethics committee approval should be included with the place, date and decision number.

If the item "Animal" is used in the study, the authors state that they protect animal rights in their studies in line with the principles of Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (http://www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html) in the MATERIALS AND METHODS section of the article and that they are approved by the relevant ethical committees. They must indicate that they have received permission/approval.
If the ethics committee document is required, the ethics committee document should be scanned and uploaded to the system while the article is uploaded to the system.

1. With an Ithenticate similarity index above 15%, excluding references,
2. Without ethics committee approval,
3. No conflict of interest form,
4. Articles whose copyright agreement and authorship approval form are not signed by all authors are not considered for publication in our journal.

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Articles submitted to our journal must not have been previously published elsewhere or sent for publication.
• If the article has any previously published; quotations, tables, pictures, etc. the author must obtain written permission from the copyright holder and authors, and state this in the article.
• If studies previously presented in scientific meetings such as presentations, papers and abstracts iare being converted into articles, they must be stated in the article.
• For articles in Turkish, the Turkish dictionary of the Turkish Language Association or http://www.tdk.org.tr and the glossary of terms belonging to the relevant branches should be taken as basis.
• When sending articles to our journal, the Copyright Agreement and Authorship Confirmation Information Form (Copyright), on the website of the journal (signed with wet signature by all authors stating that the submitted article has not been published in full text in another journal, that the authors have approved the publication of the relevant article in Balıkesir Health Sciences Journal and all its content) is filled out and must be loaded into the system.

1) Copyright Transfer and Authorship Confirmation Form 

2) Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form 

3) Ethics Committee Certificate,

4) Similarity Report,

5) File with Author Information (Unblinded Title + Full Text file)

6) File Without Author Information (Blind Title + Full text file)

A. Title Page

On the title page

1. The full title of the article,
2. Short titles (Turkish and English) should be present. The full Turkish and English titles should not exceed 12 words, abbreviated Turkish and English titles should not exceed 4 words. The title should be written in 12 points. The first letters of each word in the title should be capitalized.
3. In addition, the type of the article (research article, review, case report etc.),
4. Names of the authors (Only the initials of the first and last name should be capitalized),
5. Institutions they work for (University, Faculty, Department), ORCID numbers (https://orcid.org/),
6. Corresponding author's phone number, correspondence and e-mail address should be included.
7. The institution where the authors work should be shown under the names of the authors in the shortest form. If the authors work in different institutions, the names and institutions should be shown with upper character numbers (1,2,3). The ORCID numbers should not be shown only as id, but with the http extension should be specified as https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1123-6196.  correspondence address of the corresponding author, e-mail, telephone information should be indicated on the title page. Correspondence address of the corresponding author, e-mail, telephone information should be indicated on the title page.

B. Main Text Page

In the main text file should not include the informations about the authors, the institutions they work for, etc.

Original research articles are reported studies that have completed scientific research processes that present original and important scientific results on topics suitable for the scope of the journal. The original research main text file should contain the following sections, respectively;

1. English and Turkish Title;
2. Abstract in English and Turkish,
3. Introduction,
4. Materials and Methods,
5. Results,
6. Discussion,
7. Conclusion,
8. Acknowledgments (will be in the file with the Author Information)
9. Conflict of interest statement (will be in the file with the Author Information)
10. Author contributions (will be in the file with the Author Information)
11. Corporate and Financial Support Statement (to be in the file with the Author Information)
12. References.
    

Review articles about all topics related to health sciences should be prepared directly or by authors who have knowledge and studies in the field or are invited, and they must include up-to-date resources.  It is especially preferred if the author has published publications on the subject.

The main text file of the review article should have the following sections, respectively; English and Turkish Title; English and Turkish Abstracts, Main and Sub-titles and References.

Case reports are articles supported by documents about rare events that differ in diagnosis and treatment.
The case report main text file should contain the following sections, respectively; English and Turkish Title; English and Turkish Abstract, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, Conclusion and References.The case report main text file should contain the following sections, respectively; English and Turkish Title; English and Turkish Abstract, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, Conclusion and References.

Spelling and Language Layout

The number of words, source, tables and figures according to the type of the article should be as in Table 1.

Table 1. Limitations for each article type.

Article type	Word upper limit (Turkish / English)	Abstract word upper limit (Turkish / English)	Reference upper limit
Original article	3 500 / 4000	200 / 250	30
Case report	3 500 / 4000	200 / 250	30
Traditional review	3 500 / 4000	200 / 250	40
Systematical review and meta-analysis	3 500 / 4000	200 / 250	60
Letters to editor	1 000 / 1250	None	10

Spelling and Character

• The text of the article should be prepared in doc, docx format.
• The text should be written as justified, with 1-line spacing, and double-column.
• "Times New Roman" type font and 10 pt font size should be used while writing the text of the article. But, the Turkish and English abstracts, references and key words in the abstracts should be written in 9 pt.
• When necessary, 8 pt can be used only in Tables, Figures or Formulas. It should not be used any other part of the article, and font sizes less than 8 should not be used.
• One character space must be left after punctuation marks.
• The Latin microorganism names used in the text should be written in italics. The microorganism name, which is written in full when first used, should be abbreviated using the first letter of the genus name in later use:

“Escherichia coli...... like E.coli” The genus names and antibiotic names settled in Turkish, such as staphylococcus.....streptococcus, should be written in Turkish.

• Segments in numbers should be separated with commas and decimals with dots.
  Sample; 365,282 and 12.6
• Numerical data containing decimals should be presented in the article by rounding to two digits after the dot.
  Sample; like 0.526 = 0.53
  When using a percentage 42.3
  When using average 13.25±1.34
• The exact values given in the text should be written using equals without any spaces.
  
  Sample; such as p=0.002, n=384
  

Page layout

• When writing the text of the article, 2.5 cm from the top and bottom edges, 2 cm from the right and left edges should be left.
• The text of the article should not be divided into syllables at the end of the line and the writing of the article should be justified.

Carriage Return and Line Spacing

• Paragraphs of the article text should be indented 1.25 cm from the left side.
•  1-line spacing should be used in the writing of the article text.

Line numbers (continuous) should be added to the text of the article.

Numbering of Pages

• Numbering should be at the bottom of the page and justified to the right. Page numbers should be 10 pt in Times New Roman font.
  

Keywords

Keywords are one of the most important elements that enable researchers to reach a published article. It is of great importance in the citation of the article and in the contribution of it to the science that, the keywords are specified in a sufficient number and standardized terminology suitable for the subject of the article.
1. It should be written in Turkish and English, and the number of the keywords should be at least 3.
2. Keywords should be separated from each other by commas (,) and the first letters of the them should be capitalized.
3. English keywords should be given in accordance with "Medical Subject Headings (MESH)". The keywords can be accessed by typing the appropriate words for the relevant topic on the page opened by clicking the following link (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).
4. Turkish keywords should be given in accordance with the “TR Index Key Terms List” and “Turkish Science Terms (TBT)” (http://www.bilimterimleri.com).

What is Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)?

It is a wide medical-biological terminology index, which is used for the classification of articles in major international article search directories and databases, aims to bring a standard to medical-biological terminology and is constantly updated, where the keywords of English articles can be selected.

Organizing Main Sections and Subsections
• The titles of the main section and subsection should be written justified to the left.
• All headings and subsection headings, including the main section, should be in 10 pt bold, not italicized, the text after the heading should start on a bottom line, and colons should not be used.
• The titles of the main chapters, including the connectors, should be written in CAPITAL, and the headings of the subsections should be written in the form of sentences, that is, only the first letter of the first word should be written in capital letters.

Tables and Figures
• Tables and figures should be placed in the text after the explanation.
• Tables and figures should be centered within the text and, if possible, placed on the page mentioned in the text or on the next page.
• Large figures, tables or pictures can be minimized.
The variables in the rows of the table should be left justified, other values ​​such as number, test and p value should be aligned to the right.
• Numbers in the table should be justified to the right of the cell, rounded to two digits after the point, if the value before the point is 0 (zero) it should be specified.
Tables and cells should have borders all around them.
• If tables and figures longer than one page must be included in the text of the article, they can be divided according to a page size and given on the next page.
• For example “Figure 3.4. (continued), Table 3.4. (continued)".
• Tables and figures should not protrude into the page margins. Numbering and explanation; should be written as centered under the figures,
• Left justified above the tables.

• All table and figure titles should be in 10 pt and bold.

Sample; Table 1. Frequency of smoking according to sociodomographic characteristics of the study group.

• The text size of the explanations following the titles should generally be 8-10 pt. However, authors can be flexible in the font sizes of the explanations, provided that they are legible.
• Table and figure explanations should be written as follows; a dot should be placed after the number and a space must be left after the dot. Only the first letter of the first word should be capitalized, the other letters should be in lower case, and a dot should be placed at the end of the explanation.
• Table footnotes should be 9 pt.

Sample; Figure 2. Subgroups of beta-lactam antibiotics.

• If the explanations continue on the lower lines, the second and other lines should be aligned from the end of the table and figure number.
• If more than one figure that is related to each other should be on the same page, a single figure number should be given all of them, and the letters a), b), c),.... should be placed on each of them, respectively, and each of them should be explained separately.
• Sample; “Fig. 2. Beta-lactam antibiotics.
• Penicillins, b) Cephalosporins, c) Others.”

REFERENCES

Every reference given in the article must be included in the REFERENCES section of the article. Most of the references should consist of studies within the last 5 years.
If the means of expression like the pictures, figures etc. are taken from a source, this should be indicated by showing the source at the place where it is cited in the text and must be included in the reference, taking into account the reference order in the text.
The current “APA REFERENCE SYSTEM” should be used throughout the article.
Documents related to the APA Reference System format can be accessed from the link below:
APA: Resource references should be included in the APA standards, as in the "REFERENCES" header from https://apastyle.apa.org/.

If there is a DOI of the referenced studies, it should be added.

ARTICLES REQUESTING CORRECTION

1. First of all, the REFEREE ANSWER file is created for the articles for which correction is requested. This file consists of a table containing the referee proposal and the referee response sections (Table 2).

2. A table should be created by the authors regarding each suggestion of the referees and the answers given, and their opinions regarding the suggestions should be stated.

3. The revised file of the manuscript with the corrections (changes, additions or deletions) colored RED, should be attached to the continuation of the Referee's Reply File.

4. The answers of the authors for each request suggested by the referees should be attached to the table. If the proposals were not accepted, it should be written why they were not accepted.

5. For deletions, the strikethrough font should be applied in red color. The revised file must be made without using the Word changes tracking feature.

6. These procedures are continued after each round of correction requested by the referees.

Table 2. Sample referee response table

Referee	Referee opinion	Referee suggestion	Reply to referee
Referee 1	Major correction	Linguistic quality and fluency should be reviewed.	Linguistic quality and fluency were reviewed and changes were marked in red.
Referee 1		.............................................	........................................
Referee 2	Minor correction	The conclusion should be rewritten considering the findings of the research.	The results were rewritten considering the findings.

*Each referee suggestion and the response given to the referees should be indicated in the table by adding a new line.

After the referee response table, the article file where the corrections are indicated in RED should be included. The revised article file should not be uploaded to the system as a separate file, but should be uploaded as a REFEREE RESPONSE file.

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS SAMPLE REFEREE ANSWER FILE.

CLICK HERE FOR ARTICLE EVALUATION PROCESS.

It is essential that the authors comply with national and international ethical guidelines and obtain permission from the relevant ethical committees for research conducted in humans or animals. Compliance of the articles with scientific and ethical rules is the responsibility of the authors. Ethics committee permissions are not requested for every article. https://trdizin.gov.tr/trdizin-etik-ilkeler-akis-semasi/It is requested for articles that "require ethics committee approval".

ETHICS POLICY

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

• To be sure of the accuracy of the data related to the study, to keep the records of the research in order and to be able to give access to these data upon possible request.Make sure that the article you submit has not been published or accepted elsewhere.
• Accept this conflict and cite if the content it presents matches with the published or presented content, if necessary, provide the editor with a copy of any work that may contain similar content, obtain permission to reproduce or use any content from other sources, citation.
• Ensure that all work involving human or animal subjects comply with national and international laws and guidelines (for example, WMA Declaration of Helsinki, NIH Policy on the Use of Laboratory Animals, EU Directive on the Use of Animals), confirm that the necessary approvals have been obtained, and respect subject privacy.
• To indicate relevant ethical committee approvals and research details in the "Materials and Methods" section of the study.
• In case of any conflict of interest, to share it with the editor and publisher when it detects an ethical violation related to the article, to publish a statement of error, addendum, indemnity or withdraw the work when deemed necessary.

Editors' Ethical Duties and Responsibilities

• To act in a balanced, objective and fair manner in the performance of their duties without discrimination on gender, religious or political beliefs, authors' ethnic or geographical origin.
• To evaluate the articles submitted to the journal according to their content, not to show any privileges to any author.
  
• To take the necessary measures to prevent possible conflicts of interest and to evaluate existing statements, if any.
  
• To treat sponsored studies or studies on special topics in the same way as other studies,
  
• In case of a complaint of ethical violation, to follow the necessary procedures by adhering to the journal's policies and procedures. To give the authors an opportunity to respond to the complaint and not to avoid applying the necessary sanctions regardless of who the work belongs to.
  
• To reject the incoming work if it is not suitable for the journal's purpose and scope.
  

Ethical Responsibilities of Referees

• To review the article objectively in a timely manner in order to contribute to the editor's decision-making process and to agree to evaluate only the studies related to the area of ​​expertise
• To make the evaluation objectively only in relation to the content of the study. To evaluate working without considering religious, political and economic interests.
  
• To provide guidance that will help to increase the quality of the article to be published and to examine the work meticulously. To convey your comments to the author in a constructive and courteous language.
  
• To protect the confidentiality of the information provided by the editor and the author, to destroy the study after the evaluation process due to the principle of confidentiality, to notify the editor if there is a situation against blind refereeing and not to evaluate the work.
  
• To be aware of potential conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, collaborative, or other relationships between author and author) and, if necessary, to alert the editor to withdraw their assistance for this article.
  

Publisher's Ethical Responsibilities

• Among the stakeholders involved in a scientific study, the publisher should act within the scope of all these ethical principles.
• The publisher is obliged to use its communication power without any individual benefit and to direct its target audience correctly.
  
• It protects the property and copyright of every published work and undertakes the duty of archiving every published product.
  
• People should not hesitate to contact the publisher when faced with an unethical situation.
  

PLACEMENT POLICY

Balıkesir Health Sciences Journal (BAUN Health Sci J) is a journal that adopts open access and free scientific publishing as a principle, published online through TUBITAK ULAKBİM's DergiPark system, which allows academic journals published in Turkey to be published electronically. No fee is charged from the authors for the publication of the article, and the published scientific studies can be accessed free of charge under the CC BY ND 4.0 license.