Peer Review and Ethics

Peer-Review

Editorial policies of the journal are conducted according to the rules advised by Council of Science Editors and reflected “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” (ICMJE Recommendations) by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.

İstanbul Medical Journal is an independent journal based on double-blind peer-review principles. The manuscript is assigned to the Editor-in-Chief, who reviews the manuscript and makes an initial decision based on manuscript quality and editorial priorities. Manuscripts that pass initial evaluation are sent to an Associate Editor. The Associate Editor assignes the manuscript to two reviewers (internal and/or external reviewers). The reviewers must review the manuscript within 21 days. The Associate Editor recommends a decision based on the reviewers’ recommendations and sends the manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief makes a final decision based on editorial priorities, manuscript quality, and Associate Editor’s and reviewers’ recommendations. If there are any conflicting recommendations from reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief can assign a new reviewer.

The authors of the accepted manuscripts should be in consent that the editor and associate editors could make corrections without changing the main purpose of the paper.

Ethics

Experimental, clinical and drug studies requiring approval by an ethics committee must be submitted to İstanbul Medical Journal with an ethics committee approval report confirming that the study was conducted in accordance with international agreements and the Declaration of Helsinki. The approval of the ethics committee and the fact that informed consent was given by the patients should be indicated in the Materials and Methods section. In experimental animal studies, the authors should indicate that the procedures followed were in accordance with animal rights as per the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and they should obtain animal ethics committee approval.

The approval of the ethics committee, statement on the adherence to international guidelines mentioned above and that the patients` informed consent is obtained should be indicated in the Materials and Methods section and is required for case reports whenever data/media used could reveal identity of the patient. The declaration of the conflict of interest between authors, institutions, acknowledgement of any financial or material support is mandatory for authors submitting manuscript and the statement should appear at the end of manuscript. Reviewers are required to report if any potential conflict of interest exists between reviewer and authors, institutions.

The journal disapproves following unethical practices and will not accept or publish any suspicious article, as well as efforts to influence the review process with such practices as gifting authorship, inappropriate acknowledgements, and references.

Plagiarism: To re-publish whole or in part the contents of another author's publication as one's own without providing a reference.
Fabrication: To publish data and findings/results that do not exist.
Duplication: Use of data from another publication, which includes re-publishing a manuscript in different languages.
Salamisation: To create more than one publication by dividing the results of a study preternaturally.

All manuscripts submitted are screened for plagiarism using Crossref Similarity Check powered by “iThenticate” software.