Balancing Ethics, Education, and Compassion in Physician-Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

Instructions for Authors

General information

• Turkish Journal of Internal Medicine (TJIM) is an international, double-blind peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes manuscripts describing clinical research in medicine.
• Manuscripts must describe original data that has not been published previously nor submitted for publication elsewhere.
• Manuscripts that adhere to the TJIM submission guidelines and are deemed appropriate for the scope of the journal are sent to two reviewers who are specialists in the field.
• The members of the Editorial Board who discuss the suitability then consider the reviewers’ comments on each submission.
• The final decision for all submitted manuscripts rests with the Editor-in-Chief.

Institutional review board/ethics committee approval (IRB)

If a study involves either human subjects, human-derived materials, and/or medical records, authors must include in the Methods section either a statement that an Institutional Review Board (IRB)/Ethics Committee approval has been obtained or a statement that the IRB/Ethics Committee had ruled that approval was not required for the study. When reporting experiments conducted with humans indicate that the procedures were in accordance with ethical standards set forth by the committee that oversees human experimentation. Approval of research protocols by the relevant ethics committee, in accordance with international agreements (Helsinki Declaration of 1975, revised 2002 available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/b3.htm, “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals” www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html/), is required for all experimental, clinical, and drug studies. Patient names, initials, and hospital identification numbers should not be used. Manuscripts reporting the results of experimental investigations conducted with humans must state that the study protocol received institutional review board approval and that the participants provided informed consent.

Copyright transfer

The publisher retains the copyright to all material published in the TJIM. The publisher is not responsible for any legal claims arising from the publication of a manuscript. A Copyright Transfer Agreement form must be submitted together with the manuscript at the time of initial submission. All authors/corresponding authors must sign the form, indicating that all authors agree to the publication of their manuscript in the TJIM should their manuscript be accepted. A scanned file (PDF, TIFF, or JPEG) of the signed Copyright Transfer Agreement may be submitted at the time of online submission of the manuscript. The Editorial Office must receive the Copyright Transfer Agreement before any action can be taken regarding the manuscript.

Copyright of all publications is protected under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND). This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
 

Conflict of interest policy

Authors are required to disclose all conflicts of interest that may have influenced their research or the preparation and writing of their manuscript. Conflicts of interest may include both financial and non-financial relationships. Because it is often difficult to determine whether a conflict of interest exists, the Editorial Board requests that all potential conflicts be declared at the time of initial submission of the manuscript on the title page. Other pertinent relationships that may be relevant should be disclosed to the Editor-in-Chief in the cover letter at the time of submission.

Manuscript submission

All manuscripts must conform to the language and writing style of the TJIM. This includes submission of the manuscript with correct medical English as well as submission of any figures and tables in the formats specified. Authors should submit their manuscript and accompanying material to the TJIM via the online Editorial Manager system by logging on http://dergipark.org.tr/ and uploading all manuscript files following the instructions given.

Authorship

All authors should have been directly involved in the work described in the manuscript. Additional contributors to a manuscript, such as professors or others who gave helpful advice or companies that donated material, may be thanked in the Acknowledgments section following the main text. TJIM does not permit two or more authors to be “equal contributors” to a manuscript.

Permission

All figures, tables, and text passages that have been previously published require permission from the copyright owner(s) for the TJIM. All expenses related to obtaining such permission must be borne by the authors. By signing the copyright form, you state that TJIM owns the copyright to the material in your article. Permission must be obtained for any material to which the authors do not own the full copyright. No material such as clinical images or charts, photos, and graphs as well as images of devices that may have been obtained from their producers, can be published without such permission. To secure the right to publish material that you do not own, contact the holder of the copyright (journal in which it was published, book publishers, or company that developed the instrument) by e-mail describing in detail the material you wish to use and stating that you wish to include that material in your manuscript (including the title The copyright owner will usually reply stating that permission has been granted. A copy of the reply must be forwarded to the TJIM offices with the number of your manuscript and a description of the materials in question. Most copyright permissions will specify conditions relating to the way in which reference to the permission should be stated. These conditions must be adhered to in full, otherwise, the permission may be invalid. Note that in some instances copyright owners may require payment. In these cases, the authors must bear all such costs. As papers cannot be changed once accepted, authors are advised to apply for copyright permission early to prevent the possibility of the paper having to be withdrawn from publication. Note that receiving permission may take up to eight weeks and that the paper cannot be processed for publication before such permission has been granted.

Title page 
The title page should present a title (and running title) that includes, if appropriate, the study design, and should list the full names and institutional addresses for all authors. 

Types of Papers
All papers published by the Turkish Journal of Internal Medicine are peer-reviewed. 

Original Article
An article is a full-length report on original primary research that will interest the journal's readers. They must describe significant and original observations. 
Review Article 
The review article is a comprehensive analysis of specific topics and recent developments in a particular area. A review should focus on recent research and issues. It should also include the authors' opinion on how to approach the topic/situation under discussion and what is needed to advance the field in the future.
Communications 
Short (brief) communications are short papers that focus on a particular aspect of a problem or a new finding that is expected to have a significant impact and present original and important material. Short communication is not intended to publish preliminary results. They may be given rapid publication. Short communication should not be subdivided. The paper should include an abstract, main body of text (combined methods, results, and discussion in a single section), and references. 
Rapid communications are similar to short communications. These are usually articles used to disseminate preliminary results that are original, of high interest, and likely to have a significant impact on the relevant scientific community. In the healthcare field, this can include information that is urgent from a public health perspective or findings in a rapidly changing specialty. Their format is similar to short communications. 
Case Report
Case reports and case studies should present significant new insights or cases with an unusual and noteworthy course. It is recommended that case reports include an up-to-date review of all previous cases in the field. The novelty of the case(s) may lie in the phenotype, the presentation, the investigation, and/or the management. 
Letter
Letters are encouraged if they directly concern articles recently published in the journal. If accepted, the editors reserve the right to submit such letters to the authors of the articles concerned prior to publication, in order to permit them to respond in the same issue of the journal.

Manuscript preparation

Manuscripts should be created using Microsoft Word and be double-spaced with 2.5-cm margins on all sides. Pages should be numbered consecutively, with consecutive line numbering from the first through the last page, using the automatic numbering function of the software. The recommended font is Times New Roman and the recommended font size is 11 points. The entire manuscript for a full-length article, excluding references and tables, should be no more than 6000 words. Do not use field functions. For indenting, use tab stops, not the space bar. For tables, use the table function, not spreadsheets. For equations, use either the equation editor or MathType.
 

Abstracts

A structured abstract of no more than 350 words is required. The Abstract for all manuscripts except case reports and review articles should be divided into Introduction, Methods, Results, and Conclusions.

Keywords

Keywords are required for indexing and abstracting services. Up to ten words should be listed.

Main text

The main text of an original article should be divided into INTRODUCTION, METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION, and CONCLUSION sections. The case report should include an abstract, introduction, case report, discussion, and references. Abbreviations must be defined following their first use in the Abstract as well as in the main text and in the figures and tables. Only commonly accepted abbreviations should be used. Drug and chemical names should be stated using generic or standard chemical nomenclature. Units of measurement should conform to the International System (SI); however, clinical data may be presented in conventional units where deemed more appropriate.

Headings and subheadings

Main headings (INTRODUCTION, METHODS, RESULTS, DISCUSSION, etc.) and the word REFERENCES should be written in capital letters. In subheadings, only the first letter of each word should be capitalized.

Footnotes

Footnotes may be used to give additional information, but should not consist of a reference citation, which is not included in the reference list at the end of the manuscript, and must not contain figures or tables. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively and separately for the title page, the main text, and each table. Footnotes should be indicated by superscript lowercase letters or numbers, or by asterisks for significance values and other statistical data. Footnotes should be positioned at the bottom of the page or table in which they appear.

Tables, Graphics, and Illustrations

Tables, graphics, and illustrations should be numbered in Arabic numerals in the text. The places of the illustrations should be signed in the text.

Tables

• Tables capture information concisely and display it efficiently; they also provide information at any desired level of detail and precision. Including data in tables rather than text frequently makes it possible to reduce the length of the text. 
• Tables must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the text (e.g., Table 1, Table 2, …). Table titles should be placed above the table in Times New Roman, 10-point font size. Table content should be written in Times New Roman, 10-point font size. If the table does not fit within the page, the font size may be reduced accordingly. Statistically significant values should be presented in bold. If the table has a source, it must be indicated below the table in Times New Roman, 9–10-point font size. Only the first letter of the first word in the table title should be capitalized. All other words should be lowercase (except for proper nouns).
• Authors should include explanatory information as notes below the table, not in the title.
• Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge that source fully. 
• Additional tables containing backup data too extensive to publish in print may be appropriate for publication in the electronic version of the journal, deposited with an archival service, or made available to readers directly by the authors. An appropriate statement should be added to the text. Such tables should be submitted for consideration with the paper so that they will be available to the peer reviewers.

Illustrations (Figures)

• Figures should be either professionally drawn and photographed or submitted as digital prints in photographic quality. In addition to requiring a version of the figures suitable for printing, authors are asked for electronic files of figures in a format (for example, JPEG or GIF) that will produce high-quality images in the Web version of the journal; authors should review the images of such files on a computer screen before submitting them to be sure they meet their own quality standards.
• For X-ray films, scans, and other diagnostic images, as well as pictures of pathology specimens or photomicrographs, sharp, glossy, black-and-white or color photographic prints should be sent, usually 127 x 173 mm. Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should therefore be clear and consistent throughout, and large enough to remain legible when the figure is reduced for publication. 
• Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible, since many will be used directly in slide presentations. 
• Titles and detailed explanations belong in the legends--not on the illustrations themselves. 
• Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers. Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background. 
• Photographs of potentially identifiable people must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph. 
• Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been cited in the text. 
• If a figure has been published previously, the original source should be acknowledged, and written permission from the copyright holder should be submitted to reproduce the figure. Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain. Accompanying drawings marked to indicate the region to be reproduced might be useful to the editor.

Legends for Illustrations (Figures)

• For image captions, Arabic numerals corresponding to the images should be used.
• When symbols, arrows, numbers, or letters are used to identify parts of the illustrations, each one should be clearly identified and explained in the legend. The internal scale should be explained, and the method of staining in photomicrographs should be identified. Only the first letter of the first word in the figure title should be capitalized. All other words should be lowercase (except for proper nouns). 
• Figure titles should be placed below the figure in Times New Roman, 10-point font size. If the figure does not fit within the page, the font size may be reduced accordingly.  
• If the figure has a source, it must be indicated below the title in Times New Roman, 10-point font size. Only the first letter of the first word in the figure title should be capitalized. All other words should be lowercase (except for proper nouns).

Article Information Form

The article information form should be written after the text, before the references. Explain the following headings in detail.

Acknowledgments: The Acknowledgments section should follow the main text. If data from other published sources are used, the authors must obtain permission as explained above and state full acknowledgment as indicated by the copyright owners. Acknowledgments should also be made to research grants, technicians, and colleagues who assisted in the study; to individuals or companies who provided materials; and to mentors who provided advice and encouragement.
Financial Disclosure: 
Conflicts of interest:
Ethical Declaration: 
Artificial Intelligence Statement:

Author Contributions: (The statement "Authors' contribution to the article is equal" is not accepted.) To be considered as an author of an article, a writer must have contributed to at least 3 of the following. If any of the following headings are not relevant to your work, please mark them as "None".
Conceptualization: FA, SA;
Methodology: FA, SA;
Software: TA;
Validation: FA, TA;
Formal analysis: SA;
Investigation: FA;
Resources: TA;
Data curation: FA;
Writing – original draft: SA;
Writing – review & editing: FA;
Visualization: SA;
Supervision: None;
Project administration: FA, SA;
Funding acquisition: None.;

Reference Style and Format

• References in the article should be written in Vancouver style.
• By 2026, articles submitted to the journal must contain a maximum of 50 references.
• References should be shown in square brackets, for example [1], [2,3], [4-8].
• References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in parentheses.
• References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure. 
• The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the list of Journals in Index Medicus. Additionally, the list should be obtained from the web address http://www.nlm.nih.gov. If a journal is not indexed in Index Medicus, it should not be abbreviated.
• If there are more than 6 authors, write the first 6 authors according to the rule and use et al. for the subsequent authors.
• All references should be cited in text.
• Citing a "personal communication" should be avoided unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication must be obtained.
• Accuracy of citation is the author's responsibility. Type references in the style shown below. 

For journals

Articles in journals

For the published article from the journal, which is placed and abbreviated in Medline:

• Krinsley JS, Preiser JC. Is it time to abandon glucose control in critically ill adult patients? Curr Opin Crit Care. 2019;25(4):299-306. doi:10.1097/MCC.0000000000000621.
• Noma H, Furukawa TA, Maruo K, Imai H, Shinohara K, Tanaka S, et al. Exploratory analyses of effect modifiers in the antidepressant treatment of major depression: individual-participant data meta-analysis of 2803 participants in seven placebo-controlled randomized trials. J Affect Disord. 2019;250:419-24. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2019.03.031.
• Glisson BS, Leidner RS, Ferris RL, Powderly J, Rizvi NA, Keam B, et al. Safety and clinical activity of MEDI0562, a humanized OX40 agonist monoclonal antibody, in adult patients with advanced solid tumors. Clin Cancer Res. 2020;26(20):5358-67. doi:10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-19-3070. Epub 2020 Aug 14.
• Lam RW, Filteau MJ, Milev R. Clinical effectiveness: the importance of psychosocial functioning outcomes. J Affect Disord. 2011;132(Suppl 1):S9-13. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2011.03.046.

For the published article from the journal that is not placed and is not abbreviated in Medline:

• Çiydem E, Şavklı Y. The effect of the managing examination anxiety program applied to high school students on test anxiety. Bandırma Onyedi Eylül Üniversitesi Sağlık Bilimleri ve Araştırmaları Dergisi. 2022;4(3):225-32. doi:10.46413/boneyusbad.1200323.

Articles in press

• O'Brien EJ, BergWood MM, Bolner J, Tucker RP, Hill RM. Discrimination and microaggression experiences concurrently and prospectively predict defeat in sexual minority college students reporting suicidal ideation. J Affect Disord. 2026. In press. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2026.121406.
• Fortea A, Ortuño M, Masias M, Guasp M, De la Serna E, Armangue T, et al. Brain metabolite levels in the post-acute stage of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and schizophrenia: a longitudinal case-control study. Biol Psychiatry. 2025. In press.

Article with published erratum

• Taylor CJ, Ordóñez-Mena JM, Roalfe AK, Lay-Flurrie S, Jones NR, Marshall T, et al. Trends in survival after a diagnosis of heart failure in the United Kingdom 2000-2017: population based cohort study. BMJ. 2019;364:l223. doi:10.1136/bmj.l223. Erratum in: BMJ. 2019;367:l5840. doi:10.1136/bmj.l5840.
• Seymour CW, Liu VX, Iwashyna TJ, Brunkhorst FM, Rea TD, Scherag A, et al. Assessment of clinical criteria for sepsis: for the Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock (Sepsis-3). JAMA. 2016;315(8):762–774. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.0288. Erratum in: JAMA. 2016;315(20):2237. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.5850.

Volume with supplement

• Giménez-Arnau AM, Toubi E, Marsland AM, Maurer M. Clinical management of urticaria using omalizumab: the first licensed biological therapy available for chronic spontaneous urticaria. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2016;30(Suppl 5):25-32. doi:10.1111/jdv.13697.

Issue with the supplement

• Wilkinson P. Non-suicidal self-injury. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2013;22(1 Suppl):S75-9. doi:10.1007/s00787-012-0365-7.

Volume with part

• Butkevich E, Hülsmann S, Wenzel D, Shirao T, Duden R, Majoul I. Drebrin is a novel connexin-43 binding partner that links gap junctions to the submembrane cytoskeleton. J Physiol. 2004;555(Pt 1):45-59. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2003.053900.

Issue with part

• Locarnini SA, Yuen L. Molecular genesis of drug-resistant and vaccine-escape HBV mutants. Antivir Ther. 2010;15(3 Pt B):451-61. doi:10.3851/IMP1499.

Issue with no volume 

• Bhandari M, Guyatt GH, Siddiqui F, Morrow F, Busse J, Leighton RK, et al. Treatment of acute Achilles tendon ruptures: a systematic overview and metaanalysis. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2002;(400):190-200. 

No volume or issue

• Don’t panic!: phobias and anxiety disorders. NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine. 2010 Fall:12-5.

Journal article on the Internet

• Nordh M, Wahlund T, Jolstedt M, et al. Therapist-guided internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy vs internet-delivered supportive therapy for children and adolescents with social anxiety disorder: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry [Internet]. 2021 May 12 [cited 2026 Feb 26];78(7):705-13. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.0469

For books and other monographs 

Personal author(s)

• Rothman KJ, Greenland S, Lash TL. Modern epidemiology. 4th ed. Philadelphia (PA): Wolters Kluwer; 2020.
• Petrie A, Sabin C. Medical statistics at a glance. 4th ed. Chichester (UK): Wiley-Blackwell; 2019.

Author(s) and editor(s)

• Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics. Crisp R, editor. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press; 2000.
• Kant I. Critique of pure reason. Guyer P, Wood AW, editors. New York (NY): Cambridge University Press; 1998.

Organization(s) as author

• World Health Organization. World malaria report 2023. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2023. 283 p.

Editor(s), compiler(s) as author

• Firth JD, Conlon C, Cox TM, editors. Oxford textbook of medicine. 6th ed. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press; 2020.
• Bennett JE, Dolin R, Blaser MJ, editors. Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett’s principles and practice of infectious diseases. 9th ed. Philadelphia (PA): Elsevier; 2020

Translated book

• Foucault M. Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Sheridan A, translator. New York (NY): Vintage Books; 1995.
• Homer. The iliad. Fagles R, translator. New York (NY): Penguin Classics; 1998.

Chapter in a book

• Clasen T. Water and sanitation. In: Detels R, Gulliford M, Abdool Karim QA, Tan CC, editors. Oxford textbook of global public health. 6th ed. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press; 2015. p. 162-79. doi:10.1093/med/9780199661756.003.0011.
• Williams GM. Statistical methods. In: Detels R, Beaglehole R, Lansang MA, Gulliford M, editors. Oxford textbook of public health. 5th ed. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press; 2009. p. 677-715.

Conference proceedings

• Youn HY, Cho WD, editors. UbiComp 2008: ubiquitous computing, 10th International Conference, UbiComp 2008; 2008 Sep 21–24; Seoul, Korea. New York (NY): ACM; 2008.
• Halliday RB, Walter DE, Proctor HC, Norton RA, Colloff MJ, editors. Acarology: Proceedings of the 10th International Congress; 1998 Jul 5–10; Canberra, Australia. Melbourne: CSIRO Publishing; 2001.

Dissertation (Thesis)

• Davis FD. A technology acceptance model for empirically testing new end-user information systems: theory and results [dissertation]. Cambridge (MA): Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan School of Management); 1986.
• Sürer S. From space to safety: flood mapping with Sentinel-1 SAR data for enhancing flood risk management in Ljungby Municipality [master’s thesis]. Lund (SE): Lund University; 2024 [Internet]. [cited 2025 Nov 22]. Available from: https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9158441
• Patwary MM. Adoption of mobile banking applications: a study on young people [master’s thesis]. Eskişehir (TR): Anadolu University Graduate School of Social Sciences; 2017 [Internet]. [cited 2025 Nov 22]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.35579.49446

Poster(s)

• Ashby S, Bowman CR, Zeithamova D. Generalized memory representations emerge across paired-associate training [poster]. Presented at: Neuroscience 2019 (49th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience); 2019 Oct 19–23; Chicago, IL.
• Foushee R, Srinivasan M, Xu F. The impact of speech complexity on preschooler attention and learning [poster]. Presented at: 45th Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD 45); 2020 Nov 5–8; Boston, MA, USA (virtual).

Patent

• Duong-Van Minh, inventor; Interos Inc, assignee. Sentiment analysis from social media content. United States patent US 8,849,826. 2014 Sep 30.

Homepage/Website

• Eurostat [Internet]. Luxembourg (LU): Statistical Office of the European Union; c1953– [cited 2025 Sep 27]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat

Proofreading

After TJIM has prepared the layout of the article, it is sent to all authors for proofreading. All authors must view the pre-publication version of the article and approve its publication.

Multicenter clinical trials

TJIM welcomes the submission of manuscripts reporting results of multicenter clinical trials. These manuscripts may be submitted with authorship in one of the following styles:

• The name of a study group only (collective authorship)
• The names of no more than five individuals and the name of a study group

In each case, one individual must serve as the corresponding author, and the names of all individuals specifically involved in the preparation of the manuscript should be listed under the heading Writing Committee following the Acknowledgments section. This should be followed by a list of investigators from each institution under the heading Study Group Investigators. Each author and each Writing Committee member must sign the Copyright Agreement and Author Acknowledgement Form.

Content responsibility

Content and scientific accuracy of all manuscripts, as well as of any electronic supplementary material, are the sole responsibility of the authors. No responsibility will be assumed by TJIM for any legal claim arising from injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of product liability, negligence, or other circumstances; nor from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the published material. No test or procedure should be carried out unless the reader judges it to be safe. Independent verification of all diagnoses and drug dosages should be performed. Discussions, views, and recommendations regarding medical procedures, drug choices, and dosages are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Disclaimer

TJIM does not accept or publish advertisements. Any mention of commercial products, if it occurs within scholarly content, does not imply endorsement by the journal.

Section A: Publication and authorship
1. All submitted papers are subject to a strict peer-review process by at least two international reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular paper. Reviewers are being selected by Associate Editors and Editor in Chief. The author also can propose reviewers for some journals and article types.
2. The factors that are taken into account in review are relevance, originality, readability, statistical validity, and language.
3. The possible decisions include acceptance, minor revisions, major revision, or rejection.
4. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
5. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
6. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
7. No research can be included in more than one publication, whether within the same journal or in another journal.

Section B: Authors’ responsibilities
1. Authors must certify that their manuscript is their original work.
2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere, or even submitted and been in reviewed in another journal.
3. The authors must participate in the peer-review process and follow the comments.
4. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
5. All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research. The level of their contribution also must be defined in the “Authors’ Contributions” section of the article.
6. The authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
7. The authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
8. The authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
9. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors.
10. Authors must not use irrelevant sources that may help other researches/journals.
11. Authors cannot withdraw their articles within the review process or after submission, or they must pay the penalty defined by the publisher.

Section C: Peer review/responsibility for the reviewers
1. Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information.
2. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author. No self-knowledge of the author(s) must affect their comments and decision.
3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments in 500 to 1000 words.
4. Reviewers may identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
5. Reviewers should also call to the Editor in Chief’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
6. Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Section D: Editorial responsibilities
1. Editors (Associate Editors or Editor in Chief) have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
2. Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
3. Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
4. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
5. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
6. Editors should have a clear picture of research funding sources.
7. Editors should base their decisions solely one the papers’ importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to publication’s scope.
8. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason.
9. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers (in half blind peer review journals).
10. Editors should ensure that all research material they publish conforms to international accepted ethical guidelines.
11. Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
12. Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
13. Editors should not reject papers based on suspicions; they should have proof of misconduct.
14. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers, and board members.
15. Editors must not change their decision after submitting a decision (especially after reject or accept) unless they have a serious reason.

Section E: Publishing Ethics Issues

Editorial Board of the Turkish Journal of Internal Medicine complies with the criteria of the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
1. All editorial members, reviewers, and authors must confirm and obey rules defined by COPE.
2. The corresponding author is the main owner of the article so she/he can withdraw the article when it is incomplete (before entering the review process or when a revision is asked for).
3. Authors cannot make major changes in the article after acceptance without a serious reason.
4. All editorial members and authors must will to publish any kind of corrections honestly and completely.
5. Any notes of plagiarism, fraudulent data, or any other kinds of fraud must be reported completely to COPE.