Preparing the Manuscript

General Submission Guidelines 

Double-blind peer review

This journal follows a double-blind reviewing procedure. Authors are therefore requested to submit:

  • A blinded manuscript without any author names and affiliations in the text or on the title page. Self-identifying citations and references in the article text should be avoided.
  • A separate title page, containing title, all author names, affiliations, and the contact information of the corresponding author. Any acknowledgements, disclosures, or funding information should also be included on this page.

Manuscript Submission

Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Permissions

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Declarations

All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations'.

If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section.

To be used for non-life science journals

Funding (information that explains whether and by whom the research was supported)

Conflicts of interest/Competing interests (include appropriate disclosures)

Availability of data and material (data transparency)

Code availability (software application or custom code)

Authors' contributions (optional: please review the submission guidelines from the journal whether statements are mandatory)

To be used for life science journals + articles with biological applications

Funding (information that explains whether and by whom the research was supported)

Conflicts of interest/Competing interests (include appropriate disclosures)

Ethics approval (include appropriate approvals or waivers)

Consent to participate (include appropriate statements)

Consent for publication (include appropriate statements)

Availability of data and material (data transparency)

Code availability (software application or custom code)

Authors' contributions (optional: please review the submission guidelines from the journal whether statements are mandatory)

Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information as well as various examples of wording. Please revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.

Online Submission

Please follow the hyperlink “Submit online” on the right and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.

Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files. Failing to submit these source files might cause unnecessary delays in the review and production process.

Language

We accept papers in English and Turkish. We appreciate any efforts that you make to ensure that the language of your paper is corrected by native speakers before submission.

Submission Format

Abstract

Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.

For life science journals only (when applicable)

Trial registration number and date of registration

Trial registration number, date of registration followed by “retrospectively registered”

Keywords

Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.

Title Page

The title page should include:

  • The name(s) of the author(s)
  • A concise and informative title
  • The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
  • A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
  • If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)

If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.

For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address unless specifically requested.

Text Formatting

Manuscripts should be submitted in MS Word format. Please respect the following instructions:

  • The manuscript should not exceed 10,000 words (not including notes) and 120 notes.
  • Use normal, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text.
  • Use 1,5 for the spacing.
  • The title should be written with capital letters (11 point, bold), sub-headings in lower case letters (10 point, bold).
  • Use italics for emphasis.
  • Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages.
  • Do not use field functions.
  • Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.
  • Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables.
  • Use the equation editor or MathType for equations.
  • Save your file in docx format (Word 2007 or higher) or doc format (older Word versions).

Headings

Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

  • Centuries and dates should be written in full: fifteenth century, 29 October 1923. For dates please use BCE and CE in English texts, AEC and EC in French texts, and MÖ and MS in Turkish texts.
  • When applicable, give numbers without “page” or “pg.” or “p” in both the reference list at the end of the paper and in-text citations.

Footnotes

Footnotes (8 pt) can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.

Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.

Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.

Scientific Style

  • Please always use internationally accepted signs and symbols for units (SI units).
  • Generic names of drugs and pesticides are preferred; if trade names are used, the generic name should be given at first mention.

Please use the standard mathematical notation for formulae, symbols etc.:

  • Italic for single letters that denote mathematical constants, variables, and unknown quantities
  • Roman/upright for numerals, operators, and punctuation, and commonly defined functions or abbreviations, e.g., cos, det, e or exp, lim, log, max, min, sin, tan, d (for derivative)
  • Bold for vectors, tensors, and matrices.

References

  • References should include complete page numbers for all articles in journals and edited volumes.
  • Notes and bibliography must be in line with journal’s reference style based on Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition).
  • Appendixes, with related bibliographical references, are placed after the main text, and before the bibliography. Their references should be included in the bibliography.

Citation

Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses. Some examples:

  • Negotiation research spans many disciplines (Thompson 1990).
  • This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman (1996).
  • This effect has been widely studied (Abbott 1991; Barakat et al. 1995; Kelso and Smith 1998; Medvec et al. 1999).

Ideally, the names of six authors should be given before et al. (assuming there are six or more), but names will not be deleted if more than six have been provided.

Reference list

The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work.

Journal names and book titles should be italicized.

  • Journal article Harris, M., Karper, E., Stacks, G., Hoffman, D., DeNiro, R., Cruz, P., et al. (2001). Writing labs and the Hollywood connection. Journal of Film Writing, 44(3), 213–245.
  • Article by DOI Slifka, M. K., & Whitton, J. L. (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. Journal of Molecular Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086
  • Book Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
  • Book chapter O’Neil, J. M., & Egan, J. (1992). Men’s and women’s gender role journeys: Metaphor for healing, transition, and transformation. In B. R. Wainrib (Ed.), Gender issues across the life cycle (pp. 107–123). New York: Springer.
  • Online document Abou-Allaban, Y., Dell, M. L., Greenberg, W., Lomax, J., Peteet, J., Torres, M., & Cowell, V. (2006). Religious/spiritual commitments and psychiatric practice. Resource document. American Psychiatric Association. http://www.psych.org/edu/other_res/lib_archives/archives/200604.pdf. Accessed 25 June 2007.

For authors using EndNote, Springer provides an output style that supports the formatting of in-text citations and reference list.

Tables

  • All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
  • Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
  • Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Figure Lettering

  • To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
  • Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
  • Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
  • Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
  • Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure Numbering

  • All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
  • Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
  • If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,"A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices [Supplementary Information (SI)] should, however, be numbered separately.

Figure Captions

  • Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
  • Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
  • No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
  • Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
  • Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.

Figure Placement and Size

  • Figures should be submitted separately from the text, if possible.
  • When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
  • For large-sized journals the figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
  • For small-sized journals, the figures should be 119 mm wide and not higher than 195 mm.

Figure Permission

If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that ITU will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.

Figure Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that

  • All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
  • Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
  • Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

Figure Submission

  • Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
  • Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
  • To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.

Text and Presentations

  • Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
  • A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.

Spreadsheets

  • Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).

Specialized Formats

  • Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.

Collecting Multiple Files

  • It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.

Numbering

  • If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
  • Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
  • Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.

Captions

  • For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.

Processing of supplementary files

  • Supplementary Information (SI) will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.

Accessibility

In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that

  • The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material.