ISSN :2822-5872

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

Instructions for Authors

Editorial Process and Referee Reviews
All manuscripts submitted for publication are reviewed by at least two referees. The names of the authors and the referees are not disclosed due to blind refereeing principles. In the evaluation process, all submitted manuscripts are scanned at least twice with plagiarism software in order to detect overlapping or similar text samples. When an article is accepted to be published, it might be subjected to editorial revisions to achieve transparency and comprehension without changing the presented data.

The editor-in-chief has full authority on ACH Medical Journal's scientific content and its publishing process.

It is mandatory for researchers to keep the data of the published research for a period of 5 years. Data from articles and analysis programs may be requested from time to time due to our editorial policy and the rules of the international publishing organizations with whom we are involved.

Conflict of Interest
Authors must declare that there is no conflict of interest. Additionally, if they have any financial support it must be clearly stated in the copyright transfer form and at the end of the article.

Ethics
According to the Declaration of Helsinki, approval from the institutional ethical review board is mandatory for all studies except case reports and review articles. Informed consent must be given by the participants and these two points must be clearly declared in the "Material and Method" section.

All articles reporting animal experiments must include a statement in the "Materials and Method" section that provides assurance that all animals receive humane care in accordance with the "Guide for Laboratory Animal Facilities and Care" and that the article has been approved in terms of institutional ethics. If necessary, a copy of the form may be requested by the editor.

Authors are responsible for the compatibility of the article with research and publishing ethics.

General Format
Manuscripts must be written in a Microsoft Word™ file (version 7.0 and higher), with 2.5 cm margins on both sides and in 12 type size Cambria font. "International System of Units" (SI)must be used. Tables and graphs must be specified in the text. Abbreviations (must be written briefly at first, then explained in parentheses) can be used in abstracts and in the text.

If the study has been previously presented in a scientific conference, the name, date and location of the conference must be noted.

The names, addresses, and e-mail addresses of the two possible referees must be sent along with the article. The editor reserves the right to decide whether or not the suggested reviews are to be used in the article.

Titles, category of the articles, names of institutions; name, address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address of the author must be included in the first page.

After the abstract section of the scientific articles, at least three keywords must be provided in the Index Medicus "Medical Subject Headings" format.

Abstracts
All articles must include abstracts in both English and Turkish. The number of words must not exceed 250, and the number of keywords must be between 3-6.

Research articles

Abstracts must not exceed 250 words and they must be structured as follows:

  • Background
  • Material and Method
  • Result
  • Conclusion
The main text must not exceed 3,000 words excluding abstract, bibliography, tables, and figure captions. The number of references must not exceed 50.

Research articles must include the following sections:
  • Title and abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Material and Method
  • Result
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • Tables, pictures and figures

Review articles
In review articles written upon invitation, any new progress on the subject must be approached by the experience of the author. There must be short, descriptive Turkish and English abstracts that are structured not to exceed 250 words. Review articles must not exceed 5,000 words for the main text (excluding abstract, bibliography, table and figure captions). The number of authors must not exceed five and the number of references must not exceed 100.

Case Reports
The abstract must be brief, explanatory, unstructured and not exceed 250 words. Case reports must include the following sections:
  • Title
  • Abstract (it must be clearly stated why the case was proposed for publication)
  • Keywords
  • Introduction; Definition, Aim
  • Case report
  • Discussion
  • References
  • Tables and figures
Case reports must not exceed 1,200 words (excluding references, tables, and figure captions). Case reports can be submitted by a maximum of 5 authors and must contain a maximum of 10 references and 5 figures or tables

Letters to the Editor
Letters (excluding references) must not exceed 500 words. The abstract section is not necessary for this type of text. A letter can be submitted by a maximum of 4 authors and must contain a maximum of 5 references and 1 figure or table.

References and Citations
The Endnote Style file for ACH Medical Journal English articles can be downloaded here.

References must be numbered according to the order in which they appear in the text and must be given as superscript in the text, after the punctuation at the end of the sentence (e.g., Reference 4 must be given as 4). Cited reference numbers must be given after punctuation at the end of the sentence, unless otherwise requested.

In sentences that refer to more than one reference, if the reference numbers are consecutive, the first reference and last reference must be written with a hyphen (e.g., Hypertension is an important health problem. 6-9), but non-consecutive references must be written using commas. (For example, the prevalence of Hypertension is increasing. 3-7,13,20).

If the number of authors is less than six, all the names must be listed. Otherwise, the first three names must be listed with "et al." If online resources are used, the access date must be included in parentheses.

Journal abbreviations must be compatible with the style used in the Cumulated Index Medicus. The full name of the journals must be written out without abbreviations.

For journal articles, the citation must be as follows: surnames, initials of authors, article title, journal title, year, volume, issue and included pages. Abbreviation should be used for journal titles; If there is no abbreviation form, then the full name can be used. No spaces must be left after punctuation marks between numbers. Duplicate numbers must be deleted when page spacing is given (e.g., 1252-63 instead of 1252-1263).

As an option, if a journal is paginating continuously throughout a volume (as many medical journals do), the month and issue number can be omitted.

Examples for both cases;

US Preventive Services Task Force. Depression scanning: recommendations and justifications. Ann Intern Med.2002;136(10):760-4.

Jewkes R, Nduna M, Levin J, et al. HIV and HSV-2 incidence and impact of stepping stones on sexual behavior in rural South Africa: a cluster randomized controlled trial. BMJ. 2008;337:a506.

A citation from a book with a single author and editor must be as follows:

Neinstein LS. Office visit, interview techniques, and suggestions for parents. In: Neinstein LS, ed. Adolescent Health. A practical guide. Third Edition. Baltimore: Williams&Wilkins; 1996:46-60.

A citation from a book with multiple authors and editors must include the names of the authors of the particular section:

Schulz JE, Parran T Jr. Principles of identification and intervention. In: Graham AW, Shultz TK, ed. Principles of Addiction Medicine. Third Edition. Baltimore: Williams&Wilkins; 1998:1-10.

Thesis for PhD references:

Kılıç C. General Health Research: A Reliability and Validity Study. Doktora Tez, Hacettepe Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Psikiyatri Anabilim Dalı, Ankara; 1992: 23-8.

For references from a web page: The name of the site, the URL address, the names of the authors, if any, and the date of access must be given in detail.

OECD Data [Internet]. https://data.oecd.org/ . (Access date: 10.05.2020).

Görlach A. Opinion: Coronavirus conspiracy theories on the rise [Internet]. 2020; https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-on-the-rise/a-53418223 . (Access date: 13.05.2020).

Providing DOI:

Joos S, Musselmann B, Szecsenyi J. Integration of complementary and alternative medicine into family practice in Germany: results of a national survey. Evidence-Based Complementary Alternative Med. 2011;2011:495813 (doi:10.1093/ecam/nep019).

For other reference styles, please refer to “ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Sample References”

See Publication Ethics and Malpractice Notice.
ACH Medical Journal is an international electronic referee-reviewed journal committed to promoting the highest possible standards of publication ethics. In order to offer the best quality material to our readers, we stand by the following principles of Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement. All articles that do not comply with these standards will be removed from publication if misapplication is detected at any time, even after publication. ACH Medical Journal checks all papers through the double-blind referee review process. ACH also checks for plagiarism and looks for fabrication (creating research data), falsification (manipulating existing research data, tables or figures), and inappropriate use of humans or animals in manuscripts. In accordance with the ethics policy, we will report suspected cases of plagiarism or duplicate publication. ACH Medical Journal reserves the right to use plagiarism detection software (e.g., iThenticate) to screen submitted articles at any time.

Authors who submit their works to the journal for publication as original articles confirm that the submitted works represent their own contributions and are not copied or plagiarized in whole or in part from other works without explicit citation. Any work or mention of other authors, contributors, or references (including online sites) must be properly cited and given reference. Authors are also responsible for language editing before submission of their articles. Additionally, all authors must disclose financial or other conflicts of interest that may affect the results or interpretation of their manuscript (financial support for the project must be disclosed). When an author discovers a material error or inaccuracy in their published work, they must immediately notify the journal editor and cooperate to retract or correct the article. The author is required to accept the license agreement before submitting the article. All articles must be submitted using the online submission procedure. Submitting an article to more than one publication at the same time is a violation of publication ethics.

Editors must ensure a fair double-blind referee-review of articles submitted for publication. They will make an effort to avoid any potential conflict of interest between the author, the editor and review staff. Editors will also ensure that all information regarding submitted manuscripts is kept confidential before publication. The editor-in-chief will coordinate the work of the editors.

Reviewers rate manuscripts based on content, regardless of the author’s ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief, or political philosophy. They must ensure that all information regarding submitted manuscripts is confidential and notify the editor-in-chief if they are aware of copyright infringement and plagiarism on the part of the author. They must evaluate the submitted manuscripts objectively and present their opinions on manuscripts in the review form. If a reviewer who feels inadequate to review research reported in an article or recognize the fact that an immediate review will be impossible, they must notify the editor-in-chief and be left out from the reviewing process.

Recording Statistical Data
The statistical method used in the article must be noted so that a reader who can access the original data can understand the results. If terms, abbreviations, and symbols are used, the statistical method and the software must be defined. The computer program and statistical method used in the article must be noted. If possible, references to work design and statistical method must be cited.

Briefly, apart from integers, two digits must be given after the period (i.e., 112.19 or 112.23 instead of 112.2), but three decimal places must be given for statistical values such as p, t, z, F, chi square. When presenting p values, the full p value must be given with the test statistics (i.e., p=0.032 instead of p<0.05). Exceptionally, p<0.001 can be used in cases where the p value is less than one thousand.