The Turkish Journal of Ophthalmology is the official periodical of the Turkish Ophthalmological Association and accepts manuscripts written in Turkish and English. Each issue is published electronically in both Turkish and English.

Manuscripts submitted in Turkish should be consistent with the Turkish Dictionary and Writing Guide (“Türkçe Sözlüğü ve Yazım Kılavuzu”) of the Turkish Language Association, and care should be taken to use the Turkish forms of words.

The Turkish Journal of Ophthalmology charges no submission or manuscript processing fee.

Contributions submitted to the Journal must be original and not published elsewhere or under consideration for publication by another journal.

Reviewed and accepted manuscripts are translated either from Turkish to English or from English to Turkish by the Journal through a professional translation service. Prior to publication, the translations are sent to the authors for approval or correction requests, to be returned within 3 days. If no response is received from the corresponding author within this period, the translation is checked and approved by the editorial board.

Turkish Journal of Ophthalmology is abbreviated as TJO, but should be denoted as Turk J Ophthalmol when referenced. In the international index and database, the journal is registered as Turkish Journal of Ophthalmology, abbreviated as Turk J Ophthalmol.

Scientific and ethical liability for a contribution remains with the author(s) and copyright is held by TJO. Authors are responsible for article contents and accuracy of the references. Manuscripts submitted for publication must be accompanied by the Copyright Transfer Form signed by all contributing authors. By submitting this form, the authors guarantee that the manuscript and the data therein are not previously published or being evaluated for publication elsewhere and declare their scientific contribution and liability.

All manuscripts submitted to TJO are screened for plagiarism using iThenticate. Results indicating plagiarism may result in manuscripts being returned or rejected.

Experimental, clinical and drug studies requiring approval by an ethics committee must be submitted to TJO with an ethics committee approval report confirming that the study was conducted in accordance with international agreements and the Helsinki Declaration (2013 revision).

When reporting treatment protocols, please provide manufacturer information (name, city, country) for all drugs and relevant materials listed in the manuscript.

Information regarding ethical approval and patient informed consent for the study should be indicated in the Materials and Methods section. In all studies involving humans, patients or volunteers must be informed and their consent must be obtained, and uploaded to the online article system. The authors can access the Consent Form here.

For experimental animal studies, the authors should include a statement confirming that the study procedures were in accordance with animal rights as per the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and that animal ethics committee approval was obtained.

If an article includes any direct or indirect commercial connections or if any institution provided material support for the research, authors must include a statement in the cover letter stating that they have no commercial relationship with the relevant product, drug, pharmaceutical company, etc. or specifying the nature of their relationship (consultant, other agreements).

All individuals and organizations from which the authors received any form of assistance and other support should be declared, and the Conflicts of Interest Form should be used to explain any conflicts of interest.

All authors should disclose their social media accounts on the title page of their published articles.

All contributions are evaluated by the editor-in-chief, associate editors, and independent referees.

The Turkish Journal of Ophthalmology uses an independent, unbiased, double-blind peer review process. Manuscripts are received and reviewed by the editor-in-chief, who directs them to the appropriate section editor. The section editor sends the manuscript to three independent referees. Referees are selected by the editorial board from among national and international experts in the area relevant to the study. The referees accept or reject the invitation to review the manuscript within two weeks. If they accept, they are expected to return their decision within 21 days. The associate editor reviews the referees’ decisions, adds their own feedback, and returns the manuscript to the editor-in-chief, who makes the final decision. In case of disagreement among referees, the editor can assign a new referee.

The editor-in-chief, associate editors, biostatistics consultant, and English language editor may make minor changes to accepted manuscripts before publication, provided they do not fundamentally change the text.

In case of a potential scientific error or suspicion/allegation of ethical infringement in research submitted for evaluation, the Journal reserves the right to submit the manuscript to the supporting institutions or other authorities for investigation. The Journal accepts the responsibility of properly following-up on the issue but does not undertake any responsibility for the actual investigation or any power of decision regarding errors.

The editorial policies and general guidelines for manuscript preparation specified below are based on the “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals” from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (2013, archived at http://www.icmje.org/).

Research articles, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses should be prepared according to the relevant guidelines:

CONSORT statement for randomized controlled trials (Moher D, Schultz KF, Altman D, for the CONSORT Group. The CONSORT statement revised recommendations for improving the quality of reports of parallel group randomized trials. JAMA 2001; 285: 1987-91) (http://www.consort-statement.org/);

PRISMA statement of preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, The PRISMA Group. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses: The PRISMA Statement. PLoS Med 2009; 6(7): e1000097.) (http://www.prisma-statement.org/);

STARD checklist for the reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy (Bossuyt PM, Reitsma JB, Bruns DE, Gatsonis CA, Glasziou PP, Irwig LM, et al., for the STARD Group. Towards complete and accurate reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy: the STARD initiative. Ann Intern Med 2003;138:40-4.) (http://www.stard-statement.org/);

STROBE statement, a checklist of items that should be included in reports of observational studies (http://www.strobe-statement.org/);

MOOSE guidelines for meta-analysis and systemic reviews of observational studies (Stroup DF, Berlin JA, Morton SC, et al. Meta-analysis of observational studies in epidemiology: a proposal for reporting Meta-analysis of observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) group. JAMA 2000; 283: 2008-12).

GENERAL GUIDELINES

All submissions to TJO are made electronically through the Journal Agent website (http://journalagent.com/tjo/). After creating an account, authors can use this system for the online submission and review process. Manuscripts collected in the system are archived according to the rules of the ICMJE, Index Medicus (Medline/PubMed) and Ulakbim-Turkish Medicine Index.

Format: Manuscripts should be prepared using Microsoft Word, size A4 with 2.5 cm margins on all sides, 12 pt Arial font, and 1.5 line spacing.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently throughout the text thereafter. Internationally accepted abbreviations should be used; refer to scientific writing guides as necessary.

Cover letter: The cover letter should include the manuscript type, a statement confirming that the article is not under consideration for publication by another journal, declaration of all sources of funding and equipment (if applicable) and a conflict of interest statement. In addition, the authors should confirm that articles submitted in English have undergone language editing and that original research articles have been reviewed by a biostatistician.

REFERENCES

Authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of all references.

In-text citations: References should be indicated as a superscript immediately after the period/full stop of the relevant sentence. If the author(s) of a reference is/are indicated at the beginning of the sentence, this reference should be written in superscript immediately after the author’s name. Relevant research conducted in Türkiye or by Turkish investigators should be cited when possible.

Citing presentations given at scientific meetings, unpublished manuscripts, theses, Internet addresses, and personal interviews or experiences should be avoided. If such references are used, they should be indicated in parentheses at the end of the relevant sentence in the text, without a reference number and written in full, in order to clarify their nature.

References section: References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. All authors should be listed regardless of number. The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used in the Index Medicus.

Reference Format

Journal: Last name(s) of the author(s) and initials, article title, publication title and its original abbreviation, publication date, volume, the inclusive page numbers.

Example:

Collin JR, Rathbun JE. Involutional entropion: a review with evaluation of a procedure. Arch Ophthalmol. 1978;96:1058-1064.

Book: Last name(s) of the author(s) and initials, chapter title, book editors, book title, edition, place of publication, date of publication and inclusive page numbers of the extract cited. Example:

Herbert L. The Infectious Diseases (1st ed). Philadelphia; Mosby Harcourt; 1999:11;1-8.

Book Chapter: Last name(s) of the author(s) and initials, chapter title, book editors, book title, edition, place of publication, date of publication and inclusive page numbers of the cited piece. Example:

O’Brien TP, Green WR. Periocular Infections. In: Feigin RD, Cherry JD, eds. Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Diseases (4th ed). Philadelphia; W.B. Saunders Company;1998:1273-1278.

Books in which the editor and author are the same person: Last name(s) of the author(s) and initials, chapter title, book editors, book title, edition, place of publication, date of publication and inclusive page numbers of the cited piece. Example:

Solcia E, Capella C, Kloppel G. Tumors of the exocrine pancreas. In: Solcia E, Capella C, Kloppel G, eds. Tumors of the Pancreas. 2nd ed. Washington: Armed Forces Institute of Pathology; 1997:145-210.

FIGURES, TABLES, GRAPHICS, AND IMAGES

All visual materials together with their legends should be located on separate pages following the main text.

Images:

Images (pictures) should be numbered and include a brief title. Permission to reproduce pictures that were published elsewhere must be included. All pictures should be of the highest quality possible, in JPEG format, and at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. The authors should upload the content of the images associated with the article in both languages to the system.

Tables, Graphics, Figures:

All tables, graphics or figures should be enumerated according to their sequence within the text and a brief descriptive caption should be written. Any abbreviations used should be defined in the accompanying legend. Tables in particular should be explanatory and facilitate readers’ understanding of the manuscript, and should not repeat data presented in the main text. The authors should upload the content of the graphics associated with the article in both languages to the system.

BIOSTATISTICS

To ensure controllability of research findings, the study design, study sample, and methodological approaches and practices should be explained with appropriate sources referenced.

The “p” value defined as the limit of significance along with appropriate indicators of measurement error and uncertainty (confidence interval, etc.) should be specified. Statistical terms, abbreviations, and symbols used in the article should be described and the software used should be stated. Statistical terminology (random, significant, correlation, etc.) should not be used in non-statistical contexts.

All data and analysis results should be presented as tables and figures and summarized in the text of the Results section. Details of the biostatistical methods and procedures used should be presented in the Materials and Methods section or under a separate Statistics heading before the Results section.

MANUSCRIPT TYPES

Original Research Articles

Includes clinical studies, clinical observations, new techniques, and experimental and in vitro studies. Original research articles should include a title, structured abstract, keywords relevant to the content of the article, and introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, study limitations, conclusion, references, tables/figures/images, and acknowledgements sections. The main text should not exceed 3000 words, excluding references.The title, abstract, and keywords should be written in both Turkish and English.

Title Page: This page should include the manuscript title, short title, and author name(s) and affiliation(s). The following descriptions should be stated in the given order:

1. Title of the manuscript (Turkish and English), as concise and explanatory as possible, including no abbreviations, up to 135 characters

2. Short title (Turkish and English), up to 60 characters

3. The authors should express the word number of the article on the title page in one sentence.

4. Each author’s full name (without abbreviations and academic titles) and affiliation

5. The corresponding author’s name, postal address, e-mail address, and phone and fax numbers

6. If the study was presented at a congress and its abstract was published in the congress abstract book, please provide the date and location of the relevant scientific meeting.

7. The online access link and date should be given for the articles that have been published in preprint repositories.

The total number of words in the main document's table and figure subtitles, except for the source and abstract, must be specified by the authors on the title page document.

Abstract: The article should be summarized in a Turkish abstract not exceeding 250 words and a corresponding English abstract up to 285 words in length. References should not be cited in the abstract. The use of abbreviations should be avoided as much as possible; any abbreviations in the abstract should be defined and used independently of those used in the main text. For original research articles, the structured abstract should include the following 5 subheadings:

Objectives: The aim of the study should be clearly stated.

Materials and Methods: The study should be described, including selection criteria, design (randomized, retrospective/prospective, etc.), and statistical methods applied, if applicable.

Results: The main results of the study should be stated and the statistical significance level should be indicated.

Conclusion: The results of the study should be summarized and the clinical applicability of the results should be defined.

Keywords: The abstract should be followed by 3 to 5 keywords. Keywords in English should be consistent with the Medical Subject Headings (MESH) terms (www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html). Turkish keywords should be direct translations of MESH terms.

The main text of the article should include the following headings:

Introduction: Should consist of a brief background to the subject and the study objective(s), supported by information from the literature.

Materials and Methods: The study plan should be clearly described, including whether the study was randomized and retrospective or prospective, the inclusion and exclusion criteria applied, the patient/sample number and characteristics, and statistical methods used.

Results: The results of the study should be stated, with tables/figures given in numerical order; the results should be evaluated according to the statistical analysis methods applied. See the Tables, Graphics, Figures, And Images section of the General Guidelines for details about the preparation of visual material.

Discussion: The study results should be discussed in terms of their favorable and unfavorable aspects and they should be compared with the literature. The conclusion of the study should be highlighted.

Study Limitations: This section should state which data and analyses could not be included in the study, discuss limitations of the study, and give recommendations for future studies.

Conclusion: Highlights the results obtained and conclusions that can be drawn from the study.

Acknowledgements: Any technical or financial support or editorial contributions (statistical analysis, English/Turkish evaluation) towards the study should appear at the end of the article.

References: Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. See the General Guidelines for details about the usage and formatting required.

Case Reports

Case reports should present cases which are rarely seen, feature novelty in diagnosis and treatment, and contribute to our current knowledge. The first page should include the title in Turkish and English, an unstructured Turkish summary up to 150 words in length and a corresponding English abstract not exceeding 175 words, and keywords in both languages. The main text should include the introduction, case presentation, discussion, and references. The main text should not exceed 1500 words, excluding references. For case series of 3 or more, the main text should not exceed 2000 words, excluding references.

Review Articles

Review articles can address any aspect of clinical or basic ophthalmology and should be written in a format that describes, discusses, and analyzes the current state of knowledge or clinical use based on the latest evidence and offers directions for future research. Most review articles are invited, but uninvited review submissions are also welcome. Contacting the section editor is recommended before submitting a review.

Reviews articles analyze topics in depth, independently, and without bias. The first section should include Turkish and English titles, unstructured summaries, and keywords. All cited literature should be referenced. The main text should not exceed 5000 words, excluding references.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor should be short commentaries related to current developments in ophthalmology and their scientific and social aspects, or may ask questions or offer further contributions in response to articles published in the Journal. Letters do not include a title or an abstract, should not exceed 500 words, and can have up to 5 references.

CORRESPONDENCE

All correspondence should be directed to the Journal’s secretariat:

Post:

Turkish Ophthalmological Association

Avrupa Konutları Kale, Maltepe Mah. Yedikule Çırpıcı Yolu Sk. 9

Blok No:2 Kat:1 Ofis:1 Zeytinburnu-İstanbul-Türkiye

Phone: +90 212 801 44 36/37 / Fax: +90 212 801 44 39

Web Page: www.oftalmoloji.org

E-mail: dergi@oftalmoloji.org / sekreter@oftalmoloji.org