Evaluation Principles
1) Articles that have not been published before or that are not yet under evaluation in another journal for publication and that are approved by each author are accepted for evaluation.
2) Submitted and pre-checked articles are scanned for plagiarism using Ithenticate and intihal.net software.
3) Hitit Medical Journal carries out a double-blind review process. All studies will first be evaluated by the editor in terms of suitability for the journal. The articles deemed appropriate are sent to at least two independent expert reviewers to evaluate the scientific quality of the article.
4) The Editor-in-Chief evaluates the articles independently of the authors' ethnic origin, gender, nationality, religious belief and political philosophy. It ensures that the articles submitted for publication undergo a fair double-blind peer-review.
5) Chief editor; does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and reviewers.
6) The editor is responsible for the final decision regarding the acceptance or rejection of the articles. Editor's decision is final.
7) Editors are not involved in decisions about articles written by them or their family members or colleagues, or related to products or services in which the editor is concerned. Any such submission is subject to all of the journal's usual procedures.
Reviewers should ensure that all information regarding the submitted articles remain confidential until the article is published, and should report any copyright infringement and plagiarism on the part of the author to the editor.
If the reviewer does not feel qualified about the subject of the article or if it does not seem possible to provide timely feedback, he should notify the editor of this situation and ask him not to involve himself in the referee process.
During the evaluation process, the editor clearly states that the articles submitted for review to the referees are the exclusive property of the authors and this is a privileged communication. Reviewers and editorial board members cannot discuss articles with other people. Care should be taken to keep the identities of the referees confidential.

Evaluation process
Review Type: Double Blind
Double Blinding: After plagiarism check, eligible articles are evaluated by the editor-in-chief for originality, methodology, importance of the topic covered, and compatibility with the journal scope. The editor ensures that the articles go through a fair double-blind review and, if the article complies with the formal principles, it submits the incoming article to at least two referees from the country and / or abroad, and if the referees deem it necessary, the editors approve the publication after the requested changes are made by the authors.
Review Time: Pre-release
Author-Reviewer Interaction: Editors mediate all interactions between reviewers and authors.
Time in Review: The period until the first decision is approximately 30 days for research articles included in the referee process for review in Hitit Medical Journal.
Acceptance Rate: We publish approximately 30-40% of the articles that reach our journal. About one-third of all applications are rejected at pre-review before they are submitted for peer-review.
Plagiarism Check: Yes – Ithenticate and intihal.net scan articles for plagiarism prevention.
Number of Reviewers Reviewing Each Article: Two/three
Time Allowed: 20 days. This period can be extended by adding 10 days.
Decision: In order for the article to be accepted as a publication by the Editor, at least two referees must make an acceptance decision.
Suspected Ethical Violation: Reviewers should report the situation to the Editor when they suspect a research or publication misconduct. The editor is responsible for carrying out the necessary actions by following the COPE recommendations.
The Editor-in-Chief reviews the research article on the day it is sent, and if he thinks the article is worthy of further consideration, he sends it to the assistant editor for further review. For research articles, the assistant editor usually reads each article from beginning to end. We aim for an initial decision on all articles within two or three weeks; but usually the first decision is made within a few days of posting. When we do not think that Hitit Medical Journal is the right journal for the study, we immediately notify the authors so that they can send their work elsewhere without delay. The usual reasons for rejection at this stage are; insufficient originality and the subject is out of the scope of the journal.
The next step for your research paper is our Editorial Board meeting. Members read your article and discuss its importance, originality, scientific quality. We focus mainly on the research question to make editorial decisions for research articles. Even if the subject of the article is relevant to the scope of the journal, current and important, we can reject the article if there is no research question. Everyone who attends paper meetings is asked to declare relevant conflicting interests at the outset, and anyone with a significant conflicting interest leaves the room (depending on the nature and scope of their interest) while the relevant article is being discussed, or speaks last.
If your article is suitable for Hitit Medical Journal, the section editor sends your article to at least two external referees. Reviewers advise the editors, who will make the final decision. Reviewers are asked to approve their reports and declare any conflicts of interest on the article we send them. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief after the external referee evaluation processes.
Some articles may also be viewed by the ethics editor of Hitit Medical Journal and third parties deemed appropriate by the editor, in cases where serious research misconduct is suspected.
We aim to arrive at the final decision on publication of all articles within 4 to 6 weeks after submission. If we propose a publication subject to revision, we usually ask the authors to revise and upload their articles to the system within the next month.
Accepted articles are published at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/hititmedj as they are prepared. After publication, articles are selected for the next issue.
Hitit Medical Journal provides open access to articles as part of its commitment to readers and authors. All of our articles are freely available online.
If you notice any errors in your published article, email the editor-in-chief who will let you know if corrections will be made.

Principles of the Peer Process for the Work of the Editorial Staff
Editorial articles and analysis articles written by Hitit Medical Journal's own editors are not subject to external referee evaluation. Original research articles, on the other hand, are sent to at least two external referees within the scope of blind refereeing. During this time, the roles of those editors are suspended.

Authors Responsibilities
The author must comply with research and publication training.
The author should not attempt to publish the same work in more than one journal.
The author should fully indicate the works he has used in the writing of the article in the bibliography.

Editor's Responsibilities
The editor evaluates the articles for scientific content, regardless of the ethnic origin, gender, nationality, religious belief or political opinion of the authors.
The editor makes a fair double-blind peer-review of the articles submitted for publication and ensures that all information about the submitted articles is kept confidential before publication.
The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential and this is a privileged interaction. The referees and editorial board cannot discuss the articles with other people. Anonymity of referees should be ensured. In certain cases, the editor may share one reviewer's review with other reviewers to clarify a particular point.
The editor is responsible for the content and overall quality of the publication. It is also his/her responsibility to issue a correction note or implement a withdrawal as necessary.
Editor; does not allow any conflict of interest between authors, editors and referees. Only the referee has full authority to appoint and the Editorial Board is responsible for the final decision regarding the publication of the articles in the journal.

Responsibilities of the Reviewers
Reviewers; There should be no conflicts of interest regarding the research, authors and/or research funders.
The evaluations of the referees should be objective.
The language and style used by the referees should not be offensive to the author.
Reviewers must ensure that all information regarding submitted articles remains confidential until the article is published.
Reviewers should notify the editor if they notice copyright infringement or plagiarism in the work they are reviewing.
A reviewer who feels inadequate to review an article or thinks that he/she will not be able to complete the review within the specified time should withdraw from the review process.
During the refereeing process, the referees are expected to evaluate the following points: Does the article contain new and important information? / Does the abstract clearly and neatly describe the content of the article? / Is the method coherent and clearly defined? / Are the comments and conclusions made substantiated by the findings? / Are adequate references given to other studies in the field? / Is the language quality adequate?

Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Screening
Study; The journal is reviewed by the editor for compliance with publication principles, academic writing rules and APA Citation System, and is screened for plagiarism using iThenticate or plagiarism.net. The preliminary review is completed within a maximum of 15 days. The plagiarism similarity rate must be less than 20%. Even though the similarity rate is 1%, if the citation and citation are not duly made, plagiarism may still be in question. In this respect, citation and citation rules should be known and carefully applied by the author:

Citation/Indirect Citation: If a reference is made to an opinion, discussion or determination in a source and the cited opinion is lined up with the citing researcher's own words, a footnote (1) should be placed at the end of the sentence. If the reference is to a certain page or page range of the work, the page number should be given. If there is a reference to the whole work, that is, if it is cited in a way that requires the reader to examine the whole work, the footnotes include "See about this.", "See about this opinion.", "See about this discussion." or just “see.” The source should be indicated after the statement.

Quotation/Quote: If the relevant part is taken from the referenced source exactly as it is, without touching the dot and comma, the quoted part is "given in double quotes" and the source is indicated by giving the footnote number1 at the end. Existing quotations in the directly quoted text are written using 'single quotes'. If the directly quoted part is longer than three lines (more than forty words), it is shown as a separate paragraph. In order to distinguish long quotations from the main text, it should be preferred that they be written in a font size one smaller than the normal text size and the entire paragraph should be indented from the left at the beginning of the carriageway. Some words, sentences and paragraphs can be omitted from the directly quoted text, provided that the meaning is not changed. Three dots (…) are put in place of the removed parts. It would not be correct to write the part that is quoted from a source without enclosing it in "double quotes" and to only write the source at the end. If these rules are not followed, the author may be accused of violation of publication ethics (Plagiarism).

Section Editor Review
The study, which has passed the Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Screening phase, is examined by the relevant field editor in terms of problematic and academic language-style. This review will be completed in a maximum of 15 days.

Review Process (Academic Evaluation)
The study, which passes the review of the field editor, is submitted to the evaluation of at least two external referees who have a doctoral thesis, book or article on the subject. The arbitration process is carried out in secrecy within the framework of the double-blind arbitration practice. The referee is requested to either state his opinion and opinion on the study he has examined on the text or justify it with a minimum 150-word explanation on the online referee form. If the author does not agree with the referee's opinions, he is given the right to object and defend his opinions. Provides mutual communication between the field editor, author and referee, while maintaining confidentiality. If both referee reports are positive, the study is submitted to the Editorial Board with a proposal to evaluate its publication. If one of the two referees has a negative opinion, the study is sent to a third referee. Studies can be published with the positive decision of at least two referees. The publication of book and symposium evaluations and doctoral thesis summaries is decided upon the evaluation of at least two internal referees (relevant field editors and/or editorial board members).

Revision process
If the reviewers want revisions in the text they have reviewed, the relevant reports are sent to the author and he is asked to correct his work. The author makes the corrections with the "Track Changes" feature turned on in the Word program or indicates the changes in the text in red. Presents the revised text to the field editor.

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

Reviewer Control
The reviewer requesting revision checks whether the author has made the requested corrections in the text.

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

English Language Check
Studies that pass the Turkish language control are reviewed by the English Language Editor and if necessary, corrections are requested from the author. The English language editor's control process is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Editorial Board Review
The articles that pass technical, academic and spelling/language examinations are reviewed by the Editorial Board, and whether they will be published or not, and if they will be published, in which issue they will be included is decided. The Board decides by majority vote. In the event of a tie, the final decision is made in the direction of the editor's decision.

Typesetting and Layout Phase
The typesetting and layout of the works decided to be published by the Editorial Board are made ready for publication and sent to the author for review. This stage lasts for a maximum of 15 days.

Data Submission to National and International Indexes
The data of the published issue is transmitted to the relevant indexes within 15 days.