Development and Evaluation of Innovative Gummy Tablet Supplement Containing Vitamin C, Vitamin D, and Arginine: Preformulation Study

JOURNAL WRITING RULES and PUBLICATION PRINCIPLES

Farabi Medical Journal (Farabi Med J) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal publishing original clinical and experimental research, case reports, editorials, and letters to the editor in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and health sciences. Review articles are accepted by invitation only.

Publication Model & Language: Farabi Med J adopts a Continuous Publication model; accepted articles are published online immediately. The journal accepts manuscripts only in English. (Note: Abstracts are published in both English and Turkish. Translation support for Turkish abstracts is provided by the Editorial Office for non-Turkish speaking authors).

Manuscripts submitted are evaluated for grammar and spelling rules throughout the process from submission to publication. Therefore, it is recommended that manuscripts be reviewed by a language expert prior to submission. 

The principles and guidelines established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) are adopted in the journal's writing and editorial processes. Manuscripts submitted to the journal are first evaluated by the Editorial Office for language and technical proficiency. At this stage, it is checked whether the study has been prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal's guidelines. Manuscripts that do not comply with the guidelines may be rejected with justification or returned to the corresponding author for corrections. Manuscripts passing the technical review undergo scientific evaluation by at least two independent reviewers who are experts in their fields, in accordance with the double-blind peer review principle. This number may be increased depending on the sufficiency of the reviewer evaluation reports. The final decision regarding all submissions rests with the authority and responsibility of the Editor. 

1. Submission Documents The following documents must be uploaded separately: I. Title Page (Must include Author details and ORCID IDs). II. Main Text File: Anonymous (No author details), Microsoft Word format. III. Copyright & Conflict of Interest: Authors agree to transfer copyright to Farabi Medical Journal. Signed "Copyright Transfer Form" and "Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form" must be uploaded.

I. Cover letter and Title page,

II. The full-text manuscript, prepared in Microsoft Word format and excluding author information, must be uploaded.

III. Copyright and Conflict of Interest: The scientific and legal responsibility of published articles belongs to the authors. The author(s) agree to transfer all publication rights regarding the article to Farabi Medical Journal.  The Copyright Transfer and Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form must be signed by all authors and uploaded to the system.

IV. Article Similarity Report: In line with publication ethics principles, Farabi Medical Journal subjects all manuscripts submitted for publication to similarity (plagiarism) screening. For this purpose, a similarity report obtained via intihal.net is requested. When the full text file is uploaded to the system in the 3rd step of the manuscript submission process, the file is directed to the intihal.net system. Since the preparation of the report may take time, the author(s) are informed via e-mail when the process is completed.In the final stage, after the similarity report is examined, the submission process can be completed, or if deemed necessary, the process can be repeated by returning to step 3. In case multiple files are uploaded and similarity reports are obtained, all reports are forwarded to the editor. The Editor(s) may also use different similarity screening tools such as iThenticate or Turnitin when deemed necessary.

The copyright of materials such as figures, tables, graphs, images, etc. used in the article may have been transferred to the corresponding author or publisher of the source article. In accordance with national and international copyright and publication ethics rules, it is mandatory to obtain written permission from the relevant source for the use of such materials. Alternatively, a similar version of the material in question must be recreated by the author(s) or interpreted by citation only, without direct usage.

V. Author Information: Information of all authors (including ORCID IDs) must be entered completely into the system during submission. Submissions with missing documents and/or information at any stage of the evaluation process may be excluded from evaluation.

2. Ethics Committee Approval:

In studies requiring ethics committee approval, obtaining this approval is mandatory. The name of the ethics committee, the approval date, and the approval number must be explicitly stated in the "Methods" section of the manuscript. Additionally, in case reports, it must be declared within the text that "Informed Consent" was obtained from the patients. The author(s) must state that they acted in accordance with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent amendments, as well as the provisions of the relevant regulations published by the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Health.

3. Peer Review Process:
Manuscripts submitted through the journal’s online system are first reviewed by the Editorial Board in terms of scientific quality, ethical compliance, and adherence to writing guidelines. The initial evaluation process takes approximately two (2) weeks. Manuscripts deemed suitable at this stage are then sent to at least two expert reviewers in the relevant field. The peer review process is expected to be completed within a maximum of one and a half (1.5) months. If revisions are requested by the reviewers, the authors must submit the revised manuscript via the journal system within one (1) month. Accepted manuscripts are published based on the date of acceptance.

4. Article Template and Formatting Requirements:

All submissions must be prepared in accordance with the journal’s article template and submitted in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx). Manuscripts should be written in Times New Roman, 11-point font, with 1.5 line spacing and 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins on all sides.

5. Formatting Guidelines:
Manuscripts submitted to the journal must comply with the formatting rules specified below.

Title Page:
The Title Page includes the title of the manuscript, author names, and institutional affiliations. It must be prepared in Microsoft Word format in accordance with the sample Title Page template available at the bottom of the journal’s homepage and uploaded to the submission system.
The Title Page should include the following information:
Type of article (Original Research Article, Review, Case Report, or Letter to the Editor)
Title of the manuscript in Turkish
Title of the manuscript in English
Full name(s) of the author(s) (in publication order)
Institutional information of the author(s) (Institution name, Department/Division, City, Country), telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses
Name, institutional address, telephone number, and e-mail address of the corresponding author
ORCID iDs of all authors (in order) — e.g., 0000-0002-1863-6280
Name of the funding organization (for supported research)

Title: The title used in the article should be written in bold and centered with the first letters capitalized.

• The name, place and date of the organization should be specified for the studies that have been presented in a congress and whose summary has been published.

• Turkish and English short titles should be no more than 50 characters (including spaces).

• It should be clearly stated whether the authors have a conflict of interest with any other author.

Main Text:

The main text must be prepared in Microsoft Word format according to the sample template provided at the bottom of the journal’s homepage and uploaded to the system.

1. The manuscript should not include any information identifying the author(s) or their institutions.

2. All section headings within the text must be written in bold:

3. Main section titles: ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

4. Subsection titles: Capitalize the First Letter of Each Word

5. Second-level subsection titles: Capitalize only the first word

6. Paragraphs should not be indented, and no space should be left between the heading and the text. However, a single line space should be left between the preceding paragraph and the heading.

7. Original research articles must include structured Turkish Özet and English Abstract sections.

8. The abstract should contain the following components: Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusion, but these headings should not be explicitly written.

9. The abstract must not exceed 250 words and should not include references, tables, citations, or undefined abbreviations.

10. Below the abstract, 3 to 5 Keywords must be provided.

11. A period (.) should be used in both Turkish and English texts to indicate decimal numbers (e.g., p<0.05).

12. The percentage sign (%) should precede the number in Turkish (%52) and follow it in English (45%).

Introduction: Clearly define the research topic, rationale, and aim with references to relevant literature.

Methods: The methods should be described in sufficient detail to allow replication by other researchers. Statistical methods must be clearly stated. For studies requiring ethics committee approval, the name of the ethics committee, approval number, and date must be clearly stated within the main text.

Results: Present findings clearly, and support them with tables, figures, or graphs if needed.

Discussion: Interpret findings in the context of the current literature, highlighting similarities and differences. Redundant information should be avoided.

Conclusion: Summarize the implications of the findings and their contribution to the field, along with relevant suggestions.

Acknowledgments (if included) should be brief.

If the study was supported by a project or derived from a thesis, this must be stated.

References should be listed at the end of the manuscript in the order of citation and in the original language of the source.

All abbreviations used in the manuscript must be defined at first mention, with the abbreviation given in parentheses immediately after.

When referring to any drug, product, device, or software program, provide the product name, manufacturer, city of production, and country in parentheses.

Original Article

It should be a maximum of 5000 words (excluding abstracts and references) and should contain the following headings, in order:
• Title (Turkish and English)
• Summary (Turkish and English)
• Keywords (Turkish and English)
• Introduction
• Method
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgment, Financial Support (if any)
• References (up to 50)
• Attachment(s); Figures and tables (up to 8)

Review Article

It should be a maximum of 8000 words (excluding abstracts and references) and should contain the following sub-headings in order:
• Title (Turkish and English)
• Summary (Turkish and English)
• Keywords (Turkish and English)
• Introduction
• Main Text
• Discussion
• Disclosures, Compliance with Ethical Standards, Conflict of Interest, Author Contribution
• References (up to 120)
• Figures and tables (if applicable)

Case report

It should be a maximum of 2000 words (excluding abstracts and references) and should contain the following headings, in order:
• Title (Turkish and English)
• Abstract (Turkish and English)
• Keywords (Turkish and English)
• Introduction
• Case report
• Discussion
• Disclosures, Compliance with Ethical Standards, Conflict of Interest, Author Contribution, Financial Disclosure
• References (up to 10)
• Figures and tables (if applicable)

Letter to the Editor

It should be a maximum of 2000 words (excluding abstracts and references) and should contain the following sub-headings in order:
• Title (Turkish and English)
• Keywords (Turkish and English)
• Main text
• References (up to 10)
• Disclosures, Compliance with Ethical Standards, Conflict of Interest, Author Contribution, Financial Disclosure

Tables and Figures

• All tables in the main text should be indicated in parentheses at the end of the relevant sentence, where they appear in the text along with the sequential table numbers (from smallest to largest).
• Table, table titles and explanations should be at the end of the main text.
• Tables should be arranged with a horizontal border above and below the table title, and below the bottom line.
• Explanation of symbols, if any, should be placed at the bottom of the table.
• Figures, graphics and photographs must be uploaded as separate files.
• Shapes. It should be submitted in one of the formats jpg, .jpeg, .tiff, .png, .doc.
• Photographs and scans taken with a digital camera must be at least 300 dpi resolution, 1280x960 pixels and saved in .jpg, .jpeg, .png or .tiff formats.
• Figure titles should be listed at the end of the references section in the main text.
• Explanation of symbols, if any, should be placed under the figures.
• Written informed consent must be obtained from the patient and/or his legal representative for any photograph used, and patient identification should not be allowed in the photograph.

Citations

• In the journal, AMA (American Medical Association) style should be used for reference.
• Author(s) can benefit from the AMA reference link in the link below:
http://www.citethisforme.com/citation-generator/ama
References in the Text
• References should be numbered in the order in which they appear in the main text. Reference numbers must be given as superscripts placed immediately after the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence. If a reference is cited more than once, the same number assigned initially should be used.
… is indicated.⁸
• If there is more than one source, they should be separated by commas.
… are reported.^8,13,18
• The first and last numbers should be separated by “-” in the sources that are sequenced one after the other.
… are reported.^13-16
• In sentences with more than one author's name, reference should be made just above the author.
…… Acar et al.⁷ found it high compared to the literature, while Balcı et al.¹² found it low.
Listing the sources at the end of the text
References at the end of the article should be listed according to the first order in the text. If the number of authors in the source is 6 or less (≤6), all authors should be indicated. When there are more than 6, only the first 3 names should be given, followed by "et al." and in Turkish sources “et al.” phrase should be added. References should be shown at the end of the text according to the number of authors as follows.
Single author: Surname AA.
Two authors: Surname AA, Surname BB.
6 authors: Surname AA, Surname BB, Surname CC, Surname DD, Surname EE, Surname FF. (All author names should be written clearly.)
More than 6 authors: Surname AA, Surname BB, Surname CC, et al. / et al. (The names of three authors should be written clearly.)

a. Excerpt from Articles Published in Printed Journals

'Author's Surname Initial letter of the author's name(s). The name of the article. Italicized short name of the journal. Publication year; Volume no (issue no):page numbers.'
Journal names should be abbreviated and italicized in accordance with the journal abbreviations in Index Medicus/Medline/PubMed. A journal that is not included in the NLM catalog should be written without abbreviation.
Example: Bozkuş TN, Değer O, Yaşar A. Chemical characterization of water and ethanolic extracts of Turkish propolis by HPLC-DAD and GC-MS. J Liq Chromatogr Relat Technol 2021;44(1–2):77–86.
When the supplement of a journal will be cited; It should be shown as (Suppl.) in English articles and (ES) in Turkish articles.
Example: McDougle CJ, Stigler KA, Posey DJ. Treatment of aggression in children and adolescents with autism and conduct disorder. JClin Psychiatry. 2003;64(suppl 4):16-25.

b. Website

Example: World Health Organization. Equitable access to essential medicines: a framework for collective action. Published March 2004. Accessed December 6, 2005. Available from: http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2004/WHO_EDM_2004.4.pdf

c. Book

The whole book is; 'Author's Surname Initial letter of the author's name(s). The title of the book. If there is more than one edition, which edition it is. Place of Publication: Publishing House; Date of issue.'
Example: Altuntaş B. From the Handkerchief to the Bagel, the Polish, the Garbage… Children Working on the Streets of Ankara. 1st ed. Istanbul, Türkiye: Iletisim Publishing; 2003.
Example: Harmening D. Modern Blood Banking & Transfusion Practices. 6th Edition. Philadelphia, PA: F.A. Davis Company; 2012.

d. Book Section

'The author of the chapter. The name of the section. In: Editor(s). The title of the book. Edition no. Place of Publication, City: Publishing House; Year: It should be written as 'Pages'.
Example: Meltzer H, Lowy M. Neuroendocrin function in psychiatric disorders. In: Berger P, Brodie H, ed. American Handbook of Psychiatry. 2nd Edition. New York, NY: Basic Book

e. Translation books:

‘The name of the author of the book. Translated name of the book. Translation editor, Trans-ed. City, Country: Publisher; year.' should be displayed as:
Example: Liberman RP. From Disability to Recovery: A Handbook of Psychiatric Recovery. Yıldız M, Trans-ed. Ankara, Turkey: Social Psychiatry Association; 2011.
Example: Plato. The Laws. Taylor EA, Trans-ed. London, England: JM Dent & Sons Ltd; 1934:104-105.

f. Conference Presentations

Author(s) A. Name of the presentation. Presented venue: Name of venue; day. moon. year; City Country.
Example: Diamond M. Lymphatic system. Lecture presented at: University of California, Berkeley; September 26, 2005; Berkeley, CA.
Example: Weber KJ, Lee J, Decresce R, Subjasis M, Prinz R. Intraoperative PTH monitoring in parathyroid hyperplasia requires stricter criteria for success. Paper presented at: 25th Annual American Association of Endocrine Surgeons Meeting; April 6, 2004; Charlottesville, VA.

g. Thesis

Writers). Title [Specialization/PhD thesis]. City, Country: Name of the University/Institution where the thesis work is done; Publication Year.
Example: Fenster SD. Cloning and Characterization of Piccolo, a Novel Component of the Presynaptic Cytoskeletal Matrix [Dissertation]. Birmingham: University of Alabama; 2000.
Writers). Title [Master's thesis]. City, Country: Name of the University/Institution where the thesis work is done; Publication Year.
Example: Undeman C. Fully Automatic Segmentation of MRI Brain Images Using Probabilistic Diffusion and a Watershed Scale-Space Approach [Master thesis]. Stockholm, Sweden: NADA, Royal Institute of Technology; 2001.

PUBLICATION POLICY

Farabi Medical Journal (Farabi Med J) is the official journal of the Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine. It is a non-profit (no fees are charged for submission or publication processes, and no royalties are paid to authors for published articles), open-access scientific journal.

The guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) are followed in the journal's publication and editorial processes. Manuscripts submitted to the journal first undergo a preliminary evaluation process to determine whether they are prepared in accordance with the journal's writing guidelines. The Editorial Board has the authority to decline to publish manuscripts that do not comply with publication guidelines or to return them to the author for correction.

Submitted manuscripts are published upon the decision of the Editorial Board after being evaluated by at least two reviewers in a double-blind manner. Manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal must not have been previously published elsewhere and must not be simultaneously submitted to any other journal for publication.

Submission by Editors and Board Members and Institutional Quotas

Farabi Medical Journal implements the following policies and quotas in accordance with COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidelines to ensure impartiality, transparency, and institutional diversity in scientific publishing:

1. Submission by Editors and Editorial Board Members

In cases where researchers serving on the editorial staff of the journal (Editor, Section Editors, Editorial Board Members) submit manuscripts to their own journals, the following procedures are executed to prevent conflicts of interest:

• Quantity Limitation: To maintain editorial balance, a maximum of 1 (one) article by a board member (as an author or co-author) may be published in the journal within a calendar year.

• Evaluation Process (Blind Peer Review): When a member of the editorial board submits a manuscript, the evaluation process of the relevant manuscript is systematically closed to the author's access. The board member who is the author can strictly not be involved in the reviewer assignment and decision stages of their own manuscript.

• Independent Editor Assignment: The processing of these manuscripts is carried out by another editor who has no conflict of interest with the author or by an invited independent "Guest Editor".

• Transparency: When the article is published, it is declared in the article details that the evaluation process was conducted independently of the author's editorial duty.

2. Institutional Diversity and Publication Quota (Anti-Inbreeding Policy)

Farabi Medical Journal observes institutional diversity in the author distribution of published articles, in line with the requirements of national and international indexes (TR Dizin, etc.). The following quota is applied to balance the concentration of publications originating from the publisher institution and to provide a rich author distribution:

• Publisher Institution Quota: It is aimed that researchers working within Karadeniz Technical University, the publisher institution of the journal, do not create a publication concentration within the same volume or year. A maximum of 2 (two) articles including the name of a researcher affiliated with Karadeniz Technical University (regardless of being corresponding author or co-author) may be published within a calendar year. Articles exceeding this number are transferred to the next year or volume, even if they have passed the peer review process.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE AUTHORS

Scientific and legal responsibility of the published articles belong to the authors. The author(s) accept that all publication rights of the article belong to Farabi Medical Journal. The 'Copyright Transfer Form' and the 'Conflict of Interest Declaration Form' in which possible conflicts of interest are declared, signed and scanned by all authors (wet signed version of the form can be requested later by mail, Copyright Transfer and Conflict of Interest Declaration Form).

Article similarity report: In accordance with its publication ethics, Farabi Medical Journal checks every article submitted for publication for plagiarism/similarity. Intihal.net similarity report is requested in Farabi Medical Journal. Articles above this rate are returned to the responsible author. When the full text file is uploaded in the 3rd step of the article submission phase, it will be forwarded to intihal.net. Preparation of the report may take time. Therefore, an e-mail will be sent to you when the process is completed. In the last step, you can complete the article submission according to the final report or go back to step 3 and repeat the process. When you upload more than one file and receive a similarity report, all reports will be forwarded to the editor. If necessary, editors can also use a different similarity checking program (iThenticate, Turnitin, etc.) for similarity checking.

Applications with missing documents and/or information at any stage of the evaluation process may be excluded from evaluation.

The information of all authors (including ORCID ID) must be uploaded to the system completely at the time of application.
Ethics committee approval should be obtained for articles that require ethics committee approval, and the information regarding this approval should be specified and documented in the article. The author(s) adhere to accepted international guidelines in this field (1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later updates) and T.C. It should indicate that the relevant provisions of the regulations issued by the Ministry of Health are complied with.
The following criteria for ethics committee approval will be sought/applied for articles sent to the Farabi Medical Journal.
1. All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants using questionnaires, face-to-face interviews, focus group work, observation and experimental techniques, research using humans and animals (including material/data) for experimental or other scientific purposes, retrospective studies Ethics Committee approval is required.

2. It should be stated that “Informed Consent Form” was taken in case reports.

3. For the use of scales, questionnaires and photographs belonging to someone else, permission must be obtained from the owners and stated.

4. The works sent through the journal system to be published in the journal are evaluated by the Editorial Board in terms of scientific, ethical and spelling rules. The pre-evaluation period is two (2) weeks. The works whose applications are accepted after the preliminary evaluation are submitted to the opinion of at least two referees who are experts in their fields.

When submitting an article to the Farabi Medical Journal, the authors are deemed to have accepted to give the copyright of their articles to the journal. If the author's work is rejected, the copyright is returned to the authors.

For figures, tables, or other materials from other sources, both print and electronic, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder. Legal, financial and penal responsibility in this matter belongs to the authors.
The final responsibility for the content of the articles published in the Farabi Medical Journal belongs to the authors. Editors, editorial board and publisher do not accept any responsibility for these articles.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF REVİEWERS

1. To accept the evaluation of articles that are related to the field and have no conflict of interest.
2. To be unbiased, impartial, objective at all stages of the evaluation and to consider only the content of the study.
3. Completing the article evaluation process on time.
4. Using constructive language when making suggestions that will help improve the quality of the article.
5. To protect the confidentiality of the evaluated article and the information related to the article.

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

1. The editors agree to provide the information needed by the authors, reviewers and readers about the relevant article in a short time.

2. While making a positive or negative decision about the articles submitted to the journal, the editors take into account criteria such as the original value of the articles, their contribution to the field, the validity and reliability of the research method used, the clarity of the expression, as well as the purpose and scope of the journal.

3. Editors apply blind peer-review and article evaluation processes, and support unbiased, impartial and objective behavior at all stages of evaluation.

4. Editors ensure the protection of all kinds of personal data in the evaluated articles.

5. Editors pay attention to the observance of human and animal rights in the articles sent to the journal. Articles that do not have ethics committee approval and, if necessary, permission are not taken into consideration for the study.

6. Editors check or request originality-similarity over the contents of the articles.

The Editorial Board of the journal handles all objections within the framework of the Editorial Ethics Committee (COPE). In such cases, authors should contact the editorial board directly regarding their appeals and complaints. When necessary, an expert can be appointed to resolve issues that cannot be resolved internally. The Editor-in-Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all appeals and complaints.