DESCRIPTION

Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies - Dil, Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi, which is the official publication of Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Western Languages and Literatures is an open access, peer-reviewed, multilingual, scholarly and international journal published two times a year in June and December. It was founded in 1954.

AIM AND SCOPE

Litera - Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies publishes disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary, theoretical and/or applied research articles that focus on Western languages and literatures in the following fields: literary studies, linguistics, cultural studies, media studies. The objective of Litera is to publish scientific articles that provide an intellectual platform for literary and cultural studies.

Western languages and literatures are the main fields of the journal's scope. However, multidisciplinary and comparative approaches that focus on Western languages and literatures are also encouraged. The target group of the Journal consists of academicians, researchers, graduate students, related professional and academic bodies and institutions. It publishes articles written in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Turkish.

EDITORIAL POLICIES AND PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Publication Policy

The subjects covered in the manuscripts submitted to the Journal for publication must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the journal. The journal gives priority to original research papers submitted for publication.

General Principles

Only those manuscripts approved by its each individual author and that were not published before in or sent to another journal, are accepted for evaluation.

Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary controls are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate. After the plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the editoral board for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject covered and compliance with the journal's scope.

Litera does not consider duplicate publication and/or partial reuse of theses, dissertations, and previously published conference papers for evaluation/publication, reuse is not allowed. Manuscripts produced from unpublished short presentations that took place in scientific meetings can be submitted on condition that the manuscript passes the similarity check and includes an information note.

Litera is open to submissions twice a year, for one month each, beginning May 1 and November 1. After each submission deadline, manuscripts undergo an initial screening by the editorial team during the following month, and the peer-review process starts for manuscripts deemed suitable for the journal.

Manuscripts that match the formal rules are assigned to (at least) two national/international referees for the double-blind peer review process, and the manuscripts accepted by the majority of the referees and the editorial board's final inspection go through the publication process.

Changing the name of an author (omission, addition or order) in papers submitted to the Journal requires written permission of all declared authors. Rejected manuscripts and graphics are not returned to the author.

Open Access Statement

The journal is an open access journal and all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Except for commercial purposes, users are allowed to read, download, copy, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

The open access articles in the journal are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.en )

Article Processing Charge

All expenses of the journal are covered by the Istanbul University. Processing and publication are free of charge with the journal. There is no article processing charges or submission fees for any submitted or accepted articles.

Peer Review Process

Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism. After the plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject covered and compliance with the journal's scope. Editorial Board evaluates manuscripts for their scientific content without regard to ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief or political philosophy of the authors and ensures a fair double-blind peer review of the selected manuscripts.

The selected manuscripts are sent to at least two national/international referees for evaluation and publication decision is given by the Section Editor and the Editor-in-Chief upon the completion of all necessary amendments.

Editor-in-Chief does not allow any conflicts of interest between the authors, editors and reviewers and is responsible for final decision for publication of the manuscripts in the Journal.

Reviewers’ judgments must be objective. Reviewers’ comments on the following aspects are expected while conducting the review.

- Does the manuscript contain new and significant information?

- Does the abstract clearly and accurately describe the content of the manuscript?

- Is the problem significant and concisely stated?

- Are the methods described comprehensively?

- Are the interpretations and consclusions justified by the results?

- Is adequate references made to other Works in the field?

- Is the language acceptable?

Reviewers must ensure that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential and must report to the editor if they are aware of copyright infringement and plagiarism on the author’s side.

A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. The reviewers and editorial board cannot discuss the manuscripts with other persons. The anonymity of the referees is important.

PUBLICATION ETHICS AND PUBLICATION MALPRACTICE STATEMENT

The journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and pays regard to Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) on https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing

The subjects covered in the manuscripts submitted to the Journal for publication must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the Journal. Only those manuscripts approved by every individual author and that were not published before in or sent to another journal, are accepted for evaluation.
Changing the name of an author (omission, addition or order) in papers submitted to the Journal requires written permission of all declared authors.
Plagiarism, duplication, fraud authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, salami slicing/salami publication, breaching of copyrights, prevailing conflict of interest are unethical behaviors. All manuscripts not in accordance with the accepted ethical standards will be removed from the publication. This also contains any possible malpractice discovered after the publication.

Plagiarism
Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate software. If plagiarism/self-plagiarism will be found authors will be informed. Editors may resubmit manuscript for similarity check at any peer-review or production stage if required. High similarity scores may lead to rejection of a manuscript before and even after acceptance. Depending on the type of article and the percentage of similarity score taken from each article, the overall similarity score is generally expected to be less than 10%.

Double Blind Peer-Review
After plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the editors-in-chief for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject covered and compliance with the journal scope. The editor provides a fair double-blind peer review of the submitted articles and hands over the papers matching the formal rules to at least two national/international referees for evaluation and gives green light for publication upon modification by the authors in accordance with the referees’ claims.

Research Ethics

The journal adheres to the highest standards in research ethics and follows the principles of international research ethics as defined below. The authors are responsible for the compliance of the manuscripts with the ethical rules.

- Principles of integrity, quality and transparency should be sustained in designing the research, reviewing the design and conducting the research.

- The research team and participants should be fully informed about the aim, methods, possible uses and requirements of the research and risks of participation in research.

- The confidentiality of the information provided by the research participants and the confidentiality of the respondents should be ensured. The research should be designed to protect the autonomy and dignity of the participants.

- Research participants should participate in the research voluntarily, not under any coercion.

- Any possible harm to participants must be avoided. The research should be planned in such a way that the participants are not at risk.

- The independence of research must be clear; and any conflict of interest or must be disclosed.

- In experimental studies with human subjects, written informed consent of the participants who decide to participate in the research must be obtained. In the case of children and those under wardship or with confirmed insanity, legal custodian’s assent must be obtained.

- If the study is to be carried out in any institution or organization, approval must be obtained from this institution or organization.

- In studies with human subject, it must be noted in the method’s section of the manuscript that the informed consent of the participants and ethics committee approval from the institution where the study has been conducted have been obtained.

Author Responsibilities

It is authors’ responsibility to ensure that the article is in accordance with scientific and ethical standards and rules. And authors must ensure that submitted work is original. They must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere or is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere, in any language. Applicable copyright laws and conventions must be followed. Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) must be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement. Any work or words of other authors, contributors, or sources must be appropriately credited and referenced.

All the authors of a submitted manuscript must have direct scientific and academic contribution to the manuscript. The author(s) of the original research articles is defined as a person who is significantly involved in “conceptualization and design of the study”, “collecting the data”, “analyzing the data”, “writing the manuscript”, “reviewing the manuscript with a critical perspective” and “planning/conducting the study of the manuscript and/or revising it”. Fund raising, data collection or supervision of the research group are not sufficient roles to be accepted as an author. The author(s) must meet all these criteria described above. The order of names in the author list of an article must be a co-decision and it must be indicated in the Copyright Agreement Form. The individuals who do not meet the authorship criteria but contributed to the study must take place in the acknowledgement section. Individuals providing technical support, assisting writing, providing a general support, providing material or financial support are examples to be indicated in acknowledgement section.

All authors must disclose all issues concerning financial relationship, conflict of interest, and competing interest that may potentially influence the results of the research or scientific judgment.

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published paper, it is the author’s obligation to promptly cooperate with the Editor to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

Responsibility for the Editor and Reviewers

Editor-in-Chief evaluates manuscripts for their scientific content without regard to ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, citizenship, religious belief or political philosophy of the authors. He/She provides a fair double-blind peer review of the submitted articles for publication and ensures that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential before publishing.

Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication. He/She must publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.

Editor-in-Chief does not allow any conflicts of interest between the authors, editors and reviewers. Only he has the full authority to assign a reviewer and is responsible for final decision for publication of the manuscripts in the Journal.

Reviewers must have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the research funders. Their judgments must be objective.

Reviewers must ensure that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential and must report to the editor if they are aware of copyright infringement and plagiarism on the author’s side.

A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

The editor informs the reviewers that the manuscripts are confidential information and that this is a privileged interaction. The reviewers and editorial board cannot discuss the manuscripts with other persons. The anonymity of the referees must be ensured. In particular situations, the editor may share the review of one reviewer with other reviewers to clarify a particular point

MANUSCRIPT ORGANIZATION

Language

Articles in Turkish, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish are published. Submitted article must include an abstract both in the article language and in English, and an extended abstract in English as well. Extended abstract in English is not required for articles in English.

Manuscript Organization and Submission

All correspondence will be sent to the first-named author unless otherwise specified. Manuscpript is to be submitted online via http://litera.istanbul.edu.tr/en/_ and it must be accompanied by a cover letter indicating that the manuscript is intended for publication, specifying the article category (i.e. research article, review etc.) and including information about the manuscript (see the Submission Checklist). Manuscripts should be prepared in Microsoft Word 2003 and upper versions. In addition, Copyright Agreement Form that has to be signed by all authors must be submitted.

1. The manuscripts should be in A4 paper standards: having 2.5 cm margins from right, left, bottom and top, Times New Roman font style in 12 font size, line spacing of 1.5 and “justify align” format. For indented paragraph, tab key should be used. One line spacing should be used for the tables and figures, which are included in the text.

2. The title of the text should be centered on the page, in lower-case letter, bold, Times New Roman font and 14 font size.

3. Before the introduction part, there should be an abstract of 200-250 words both in the language of the article and in English. An extended abstract in English between 600-800 words, summarizing the scope, the purpose, the results of the study and the methodology used is to be included following the abstracts. If the manuscript is in English, extended abstract is not required. Underneath the abstracts, 5 keywords that inform the reader about the content of the study should be specified in the language of the article and in English.

4. The target length for an article is 5,000 – 8,000 words, excluding the abstract(s) and the extended abstract.

5. The manuscripts should contain mainly these components: title, abstract and keywords; extended abstract (If the manuscript is in English, extended abstract is not required), sections, footnotes and references.

6. Research article sections are ordered as follows: “Introduction”, “Aim and Methodology”, “Findings”, “Discussion and Conclusion”, “Endnotes” and “References”. For review and commentary articles, the article should start with the “Introduction” section where the purpose and the method is mentioned, go on with the other sections; and it should be finished with “Discussion and Conclusion” section followed by “Endnotes”, “References” and “Tables and Figures”.

7. Tables, graphs and figures can be given with a number and a defining title if and only if it is necessary to follow the idea of the article. Otherwise features like demographic characteristics can be given within the text.

8. A title page including author information must be submitted together with the manuscript. The title page is to include fully descriptive title of the manuscript and, affiliation, title, e-mail address, ORCID, postal address, phone and fax number of the author(s) (see The Submission Checklist).

9. The scientific and legal responsibility for manuscripts submitted to our journal for publication belongs to the author(s).

10. The author(s) can be asked to make some changes in their articles due to peer reviews.

11. The studies that were sent to the journal will not be returned whether they are published or not.

References

Papers accepted but not yet included in the issue are published online in the Early View section and they should be cited as “advance online publication”. Citing a “personal communication” should be avoided unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text. For scientific articles, written permission and confirmation of accuracy from the source of a personal communication must be obtained.

Reference Style and Format

Litera: Journal of Language, Literature and Culture Studies - Dil, Edebiyat ve Kültür Araştırmaları Dergisi complies with APA (American Psychological Association) style 6th Edition for referencing and quoting. For more information:

- American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological

Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: APA.

- http://www.apastyle.org

Accuracy of citation is the author’s responsibility. All references should be cited in text. Reference list must be in alphabetical order. Type references in the style shown below.

Citations in the Text

Citations must be indicated with the author surname and publication year within the parenthesis.

If more than one citation is made within the same paranthesis, separate them with (;).

Samples:

More than one citation;

(Esin et al., 2002; Karasar, 1995)

Citation with one author;

(Akyolcu, 2007)

Citation with two authors;

(Sayıner & Demirci, 2007)

Citation with three, four, five authors;

First citation in the text: (Ailen, Ciambrune, & Welch, 2000) Subsequent citations in the text: (Ailen et al., 2000)

Citations with more than six authors;

(Çavdar et al., 2003)

Citations in the Reference

All the citations done in the text should be listed in the References section in alphabetical order of author surname without numbering. Below given examples should be considered in citing the references.

Basic Reference Types

Book

a) Turkish Book

Karasar, N. (1995). Araştırmalarda rapor hazırlama (8th ed.) [Preparing research reports]. Ankara, Turkey: 3A Eğitim Danışmanlık Ltd.

b) Book Translated into Turkish

Mucchielli, A. (1991). Zihniyetler [Mindsets] (A. Kotil, Trans.). İstanbul, Turkey: İletişim Yayınları.

c) Edited Book

Ören, T., Üney, T., & Çölkesen, R. (Eds.). (2006). Türkiye bilişim ansiklopedisi [Turkish Encyclopedia of Informatics]. İstanbul, Turkey: Papatya Yayıncılık.

d) Turkish Book with Multiple Authors

Tonta, Y., Bitirim, Y., & Sever, H. (2002). Türkçe arama motorlarında performans değerlendirme [Performance evaluation in Turkish search engines]. Ankara, Turkey: Total Bilişim.

e) Book in English

Kamien R., & Kamien A. (2014). Music: An appreciation. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

f) Chapter in an Edited Book

Bassett, C. (2006). Cultural studies and new media. In G. Hall & C. Birchall (Eds.), New cultural studies: Adventures in theory (pp. 220–237). Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

g) Chapter in an Edited Book in Turkish

Erkmen, T. (2012). Örgüt kültürü: Fonksiyonları, öğeleri, işletme yönetimi ve liderlikteki önemi [Organization culture: Its functions, elements and importance in leadership and business management]. In M. Zencirkıran (Ed.), Örgüt sosyolojisi [Organization sociology] (pp. 233–263). Bursa, Turkey: Dora Basım Yayın.

h) Book with the same organization as author and publisher

American Psychological Association. (2009). Publication manual of the American psychological association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Article

a) Turkish Article

Mutlu, B., & Savaşer, S. (2007). Çocuğu ameliyat sonrası yoğun bakımda olan ebeveynlerde stres nedenleri ve azaltma girişimleri [Source and intervention reduction of stress for parents whose children are in intensive care unit after surgery]. Istanbul University Florence Nightingale Journal of Nursing, 15(60), 179–182.

b) English Article

de Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., & Wodak, R. (1999). The discursive construction of national identity. Discourse and Society, 10(2), 149–173. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926599010002002

c) Journal Article with DOI and More Than Seven Authors

Lal, H., Cunningham, A. L., Godeaux, O., Chlibek, R., Diez-Domingo, J., Hwang, S.-J. ... Heineman, T. C. (2015). Efficacy of an adjuvanted herpes zoster subunit vaccine in older adults. New England Journal of Medicine, 372, 2087–2096. http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1501184

d) Journal Article from Web, without DOI

Sidani, S. (2003). Enhancing the evaluation of nursing care effectiveness. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 35(3), 26–38. Retrieved from http://cjnr.mcgill.ca

e) Journal Article wih DOI

Turner, S. J. (2010). Website statistics 2.0: Using Google Analytics to measure library website effectiveness. Technical Services Quarterly, 27, 261–278. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07317131003765910

f) Advance Online Publication

Smith, J. A. (2010). Citing advance online publication: A review. Journal of Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a45d7867

g) Article in a Magazine

Henry, W. A., III. (1990, April 9). Making the grade in today’s schools. Time, 135, 28–31.

Doctoral Dissertation, Master’s Thesis, Presentation, Proceeding

a) Dissertation/Thesis from a Commercial Database

Van Brunt, D. (1997). Networked consumer health information systems (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 9943436)

b) Dissertation/Thesis from an Institutional Database

Yaylalı-Yıldız, B. (2014). University campuses as places of potential publicness: Exploring the politicals, social and cultural practices in Ege University (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://library.iyte.edu.tr/tr/hizli-erisim/iyte-tez-portali

c) Dissertation/Thesis from Web

Tonta, Y. A. (1992). An analysis of search failures in online library catalogs (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley). Retrieved from http://yunus.hacettepe.edu.tr/~tonta/yayinlar /phd/ickapak.html

d) Dissertation/Thesis abstracted in Dissertations Abstracts International

Appelbaum, L. G. (2005). Three studies of human information processing: Texture amplifica­tion, motion representation, and figure-ground segregation. Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B. Sciences and Engineering, 65(10), 5428.

e) Symposium Contribution

Krinsky-McHale, S. J., Zigman, W. B., & Silverman, W. (2012, August). Are neuropsychiatric symptoms markers of prodromal Alzheimer’s disease in adults with Down syndrome? In W. B. Zigman (Chair), Predictors of mild cognitive impairment, dementia, and mortality in adults with Down syndrome. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Orlando, FL.

f) Conference Paper Abstract Retrieved Online

Liu, S. (2005, May). Defending against business crises with the help of intelligent agent based early warning solutions. Paper presented at the Seventh International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, Miami, FL. Abstract retrieved from http://www.iceis.org/iceis2005/abstracts_2005.htm

g) Conference Paper - In Regularly Published Proceedings and Retrieved Online

Herculano-Houzel, S., Collins, C. E., Wong, P., Kaas, J. H., & Lent, R. (2008). The basic nonuniformity of the cerebral cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 12593–12598. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0805417105

h) Proceeding in Book Form

Parsons, O. A., Pryzwansky, W. B., Weinstein, D. J., & Wiens, A. N. (1995). Taxonomy for psychology. In J. N. Reich, H. Sands, & A. N. Wiens (Eds.), Education and training beyond the doctoral degree: Proceedings of the American Psychological Association National Conference on Postdoctoral Education and Training in Psychology (pp. 45–50). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

i) Paper Presentation

Nguyen, C. A. (2012, August). Humor and deception in advertising: When laughter may not be the best medicine. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Orlando, FL.

Other Sources

a) Newspaper Article

Browne, R. (2010, March 21). This brainless patient is no dummy. Sydney Morning Herald, 45.

b) Newspaper Article with no Author

New drug appears to sharply cut risk of death from heart failure. (1993, July 15). The Washington Post, p. A12.

c) Web Page/Blog Post

Bordwell, D. (2013, June 18). David Koepp: Making the world movie-sized [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/page/27/

d) Online Encyclopedia/Dictionary

Ignition. (1989). In Oxford English online dictionary (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://dictionary.oed. com

Marcoux, A. (2008). Business ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.). The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-business/

e) Podcast

Dunning, B. (Producer). (2011, January 12). inFact: Conspiracy theories [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://itunes.apple.com/

f) Single Episode in a Television Series

Egan, D. (Writer), & Alexander, J. (Director). (2005). Failure to communicate. [Television series episode]. In D. Shore (Executive producer), House; New York, NY: Fox Broadcasting.

g) Music

Fuchs, G. (2004). Light the menorah. On Eight nights of Hanukkah [CD]. Brick, NJ: Kid Kosher.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

Ensure that the following items are present:

 Cover letter to the editor

 The category of the manuscript

 Confirming that “the paper is not under consideration for publication in another journal”.

 Including disclosure of any commercial or financial involvement.

 Confirming that last control for fluent English was done.

 Confirming that journal policies detailed in Information for Authors have been reviewed.

 Confirming that the references cited in the text and listed in the references section are in

line with APA 6.

 Copyright Agreement Form

 Permission of previously published copyrighted material if used in the present manuscript

 Title page

 The category of the manuscript

 The title of the manuscript both in the language of article and in English

 All authors’ names and affiliations (institution, faculty/department, city, country), e-mail addresses

 Corresponding author’s email address, full postal address, telephone and fax number

 ORCIDs of all authors.

 Main Manuscript Document

 The title of the manuscript both in the language of article and in English

 Abstracts (200-250 words) both in the language of article and in English

 Key words: 5 words both in the language of article and in English

 Extended Abstract (600-800 words) in English for the articles which are not in English

 Main article sections

 Grant support (if exists)

 Conflict of interest (if exists)

 Acknowledgement (if exists)

 References

 All tables, illustrations (figures) (including title, description, footnotes)

CONTACT INFO

Editor : Özlem Karadağ

E-mail : okaradag@istanbul.edu.tr

Phone : + 90 212 455 57 00 

Web site : http://litera.istanbul.edu.tr

Email : litera@istanbul.edu.tr

Address : Istanbul University,

Faculty of Letters

Department of Western Languages and Literatures

Ordu Cad. No: 6

34134, Laleli

Istanbul-Turkey