Principles of the Reviewer Process

Evaluation Principles
1. We only accept original manuscripts that have not been published before and are not being considered for publication elsewhere.
2. All manuscripts submitted for publication are checked for plagiarism using software.
3. The Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. The editor reviews all submissions to determine their suitability for the journal, and suitable papers are then sent to independent reviewers for assessment of the scientific quality of the paper.
4. The editor evaluates manuscripts based on their intellectual content and does not consider the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors. The double-blind peer review process is designed to be fair, unbiased, and timely.
5. The editor-in-chief prohibits any conflicts of interest or the union of interest between editors, reviewers, and authors to ensure an objective and unbiased evaluation of the article.
6. The editor is responsible for making the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of articles, and their decision is final.
7. The editor must not be involved in decisions about papers they have written themselves, or that have been written by family members or colleagues, or that relate to products or services in which the editor has an interest. Furthermore, any such submission must be subject to all of the journal's usual procedures.
8. Reviewers must not share the review or information about the paper with anyone prior to publication and should be alert to potential ethical issues in the paper, bringing these to the attention of the editor.
9. Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and decline to participate in the review process.
10. The editor clearly states that the articles sent for review are the private property of the authors. Reviewers and the editorial board cannot discuss the article with third parties, and the identity of reviewers cannot be disclosed.

Evaluation Process
Review: Double-blind
Double-blind Review: After checking for plagiarism, the editor will assess if the submission is suitable for the journal based on its scope and scientific merit, including the relevance of the references and the correctness of the applied methodology. The editors ensure that all submissions go through a fair double-blind review process.
Evaluation: Preprints
Author-Reviewer Communication: Editors will act as mediators between the reviewers and authors during their interactions.
Processing Time: Authors will be notified of the editor's initial decision within approximately 15 days. Acceptance Rate: We publish more than half of the articles that are submitted to our journal. Approximately one-third of all submissions are rejected during the preliminary assessment stage before being sent for peer review.
Plagiarism Check: Yes.
Number of Reviewers for Research Articles: 2-3
Number of Reviewers for Book Reviews: 1
Time for Review: 20 days, which can be extended by another 10 days.
Decision: At least two reviewers must accept the article for it to be accepted for publication.
Plagiarism: Reviewers must be attentive to potential ethical issues in the paper and should bring them to the attention of the editor. The editor is responsible for following COPE's guidelines.

The following is an overview of the submission and review process for the Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies:
- Upon submission, the editor will review the article and assign it to an associate editor. The assistant editor will then read the entire article.
- Our goal is to provide authors with an initial decision within two to three weeks of submission. However, in most cases, we will make an initial decision within a few days. If we determine that the study is not suitable for our journal, we will notify the authors immediately so that they can submit their work elsewhere. Typically, papers are rejected due to insufficient originality or because the topic falls outside the scope of the journal.
- If your paper is deemed suitable, the editor will send it to two independent reviewers. The reviewers will assist the editor in making a final decision. If any conflicts of interest arise, reviewers are required to inform the editor. The final decision will be made by the editor after the peer review process.
- The editor may share limited information with third parties if deemed necessary to investigate suspected ethical breaches.
- Our aim is to provide a final decision within four to six weeks. If revisions are needed, authors should make them within two months.
- The Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies is committed to open access and provides free online access to all articles.
- If you need to report an error in your publication, please contact the journal directly with the relevant details.

Principles of Review Process for Editorial Board Members' Papers
The Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies' editorial articles and analysis, written by the editorial board members, do not undergo an independent peer review process. However, original articles are subject to a double-blind peer review process. During the review, the editors are suspended from the editorial board.

Responsibilities of the Authors
- The authors must ensure that they have written original work.
- Each author who has sufficiently participated in the work must bear public responsibility for the content.
- Each author must approve the version to be published.
- Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication elsewhere, either in whole or in part.
- Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, or figures previously published elsewhere.
- The authors are fully responsible for the accuracy of any information provided during the submission process.
- Authors should document that they have obtained participants' consent and the necessary permissions related to the sharing and research/analysis of the used data.
- The contributor(s) or, if applicable, the contributor(s)' employer, retain all proprietary rights, such as patent rights, to use all parts of the article for the author's future works in books, lectures, classroom teaching, or oral presentations. They also have the right to reproduce the article for their own purposes provided the copies are not offered for sale.
- A Copyright Agreement Form, completed in full, must be signed by all authors. Separate copies of the form may be submitted by authors located at different institutions; however, all signatures must be original.
- All authors must fill out the Title Page Form.
- Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest at the earliest possible stage.
- Authors must disclose any sources of financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article.
- Individuals who do not meet the recommended requirements for authorship, but have provided valuable contribution to the work, should be acknowledged for their contributing role as appropriate to the publication. The corresponding author should be prepared to sign a license agreement on behalf of all co-authors.

Editor Responsibilities
As an editor, you have several important responsibilities. Firstly, you must evaluate manuscripts based on their intellectual content, without considering the author's race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy. Additionally, you must clearly state that the articles sent for review are the private property of the authors. Neither reviewers nor the editorial board can discuss the article with third parties, and the identity of reviewers cannot be disclosed. In some cases, you may share a reviewer's review with other reviewers to clarify a particular point. You are responsible for the overall quality of the publication and its contents. Therefore, you must publish a formal retraction or correction when necessary. You should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers, and board members. While you have complete authority to assign reviewers, the editorial board has the authority to reject or accept an article. It is your obligation to implement the "Blind Reviewering and Evaluation Process" policies included in the journal's publication policies. In this context, you ensure that the fair, impartial, and timely evaluation process of each work is completed. If there is a suspicion of copyright infringement or plagiarism, the TJDS editorial board must initiate an investigation. If the editorial board detects a breach of copyright or plagiarism for manuscripts in the review process, they retract the study from review and cancel its review process. They will then send a detailed document to the author(s) showing what was detected and where in the study. If the editorial board detects a breach of copyright or plagiarism for articles published in an issue or in early release, the retraction and reporting procedures are applied. As an editor, you are supposed to protect human and animal rights in the studies being reviewed and reject experimental studies that do not have ethical and related committee's approval about the population given in such studies.

Reviewer Responsibilities
As a reviewer, you have several responsibilities as well. Firstly, you cannot contact the authors directly. Comments and review reports are sent to the author via the DergiPark system. You should only agree to review manuscripts for which you have the expertise required to carry out a proper assessment. The review process is carried out on the principle of the double-blind review process. You should declare all potential conflicting interests and bring potential ethical issues or potential plagiarism to the attention of the editor. You should be objective and constructive in your reviews. You should refrain from being hostile or inflammatory and from making libelous or derogatory personal comments. When reviewing an article, you should keep the following questions in mind:
- Is the article sufficiently novel, and does it add to the canon of knowledge?
- Does the abstract reflect the content of the article?
- Does the author accurately and holistically explain the method?
- Are the claims and comments supported by the results?
- Does the article cite the relevant research?
- Is the quality of language sufficient?
- Do the abstract and keywords reflect the content and are they up-to-date?

Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Check
Before publishing a manuscript, it undergoes a preliminary review by the editor to ensure compliance with journal publication principles, academic writing rules, and the APA Citation System. It also undergoes a plagiarism check. The preliminary review is completed within a maximum of 15 days. The papers submitted to the Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies must have a similarity level less than 20%. Even when the similarity level is 1%, the author may still be considered to have plagiarized if the author had copied a statement(s) verbatim from other sources without appropriate citation and quotation.

Citation/Indirect Citation: When an idea or argument is cited, and the cited view is recorded in the researcher's own words, place a footnote (1) at the end of the sentence. If the citation refers to a specific page in the work, a page number should be given. If there is a citation to the entire work, the source should be indicated after the footnote, "See also."

Quotation/Citation: If the relevant part from the source is taken exactly as it is, without being changed, and placed in quotation marks, it is presented in double quotation marks, and a footnote number is given at the end, indicating the source. Existing quotations within the directly quoted text are written in single quotation marks. If the directly quoted text is longer than three lines (more than forty words), it is presented as a separate paragraph. It is preferable to use a font size one point smaller than the normal text size for long quotations, and the entire paragraph should be indented from the left margin. Some words, sentences, and paragraphs may be omitted from the directly quoted text, provided that the meaning is not changed. Three dots (...) should be placed in the place of the omitted sections. Simply stating the source at the end of a section exactly quoted from a source without placing it in quotation marks is not acceptable.

The following is the process for evaluating papers that are submitted for publication:
Field Editor's Review: The submitted paper passes through a preliminary review and plagiarism check before being reviewed by the relevant field editor. The field editor checks for problematic issues and academic language-style. This review is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Peer Review (Academic Evaluation): If the paper passes the field editor's review, it is then submitted for evaluation by at least two external reviewers who have a Ph.D., books, or articles on the subject. The peer review process is carried out confidentially within the framework of double-blind peer review. Reviewers are requested to express their views and opinions on the paper they have reviewed, either in the text or with a minimum of 150 words in the online reviewer form. The author is given the right to object and defend his or her views if he or she disagrees with the reviewers' opinions. The field editor ensures mutual communication between the author and the reviewers while preserving confidentiality. If both reviewers' opinions are positive, the paper is submitted to the Editorial Board with a proposal for evaluation for publication. If one of the two reviewers expresses a negative opinion, the paper is sent to a third reviewer. Papers can be published with at least two positive reviewer reports. The publication of book and symposium evaluations and dissertations summaries is decided as a result of the evaluation of at least two internal reviewers (relevant field editors and/or Editorial Board members).

Correction Stage: If reviewers request corrections to the paper, the relevant reports are sent to the author, and the author is asked to make the necessary corrections in the text. The author can make corrections with the "Track Changes" feature enabled in Word or mark the changes in red in the text. The corrected text is then submitted to the field editor.

Field Editor's Control: The field editor checks whether the author has made the requested corrections in the text.

Reviewer's Control: A reviewer who requests corrections checks whether the author has made the requested corrections in the text.

Expansion of the Abstract: If the paper is approved for publication by at least two reviewers, authors may be asked to expand the abstracts of the papers to 350-400 words.

Turkish Language Control: Papers that have passed the peer review process are reviewed by the Turkish Language Editor and the Editor-in-Chief. If necessary, corrections are requested from the author. The control process is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

English Language Control: Papers that have passed the Turkish language control are reviewed by the English Language Editor. If necessary, corrections are requested from the author.