Principles of Peer Review Process

Suspected Ethical Violations: Reviewers should inform the editor if they suspect research or publication misconduct. The editor is responsible for taking necessary actions following COPE guidelines.

• Submitted manuscripts undergo preliminary review by the editor for suitability with the journal's scope and writing guidelines. Submissions deemed suitable undergo evaluation by at least two reviewers through blind peer review. Reviewers are given 30 days to evaluate the submissions, and if a reviewer does not respond within this period, a new reviewer is appointed. For a manuscript to be eligible for publication in the journal, it must receive positive feedback from at least two reviewers. If one reviewer provides a positive opinion and the other a negative one, the manuscript is submitted for the opinion of a third reviewer. Authors are responsible for making any corrections recommended by the reviewers. Articles that receive a publishable report from the reviewers and are verified by the journal editorial team enter the publication process. The final format of the articles is determined by the authors. Accepted articles are assigned a DOI number and included in the Early View section. They are subsequently published in an appropriate number by decision of the Editorial Board. No changes can be made to articles that have been finalized and entered the publication process. Authors can withdraw their submissions during the preliminary review stage. It is not possible to withdraw manuscripts under review by reviewers. Reviewers are not aware of the identities of the authors, and authors are not aware of the identities of the reviewers. The responsibility for ensuring confidentiality in this regard lies with the journal editorial team.

• We aim to reach a final decision on publication within 4 to 6 weeks after all manuscripts have been submitted. If we offer a publication subject to revision, we usually ask authors to revise their manuscripts and upload them to the system within the following month.

• Accepted articles are published at https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/tmdrd. After publication, articles are selected for the next issue.

• Turkish Journal for the Spiritual Counselling and Care provides open access to articles as part of its commitment to readers and authors. All our articles are freely accessible online.

• If you notice any errors in your published article, you must email the editor, who will inform you whether corrections will be made.

Principles of Peer Review for Editorial Staff Works

A reviewer who feels inadequate to review a manuscript or believes they cannot meet the review deadline should withdraw from the review process.

Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Check
The manuscript undergoes a review by the editor for compliance with journal publication principles, academic writing rules, and the APA Citation System, and is checked for plagiarism using the iThenticate program. The preliminary review is completed within a maximum of 15 days. The similarity index for plagiarism should be less than 20%. Even if the similarity index is less than 1%, plagiarism may still occur if proper citation and referencing rules are not followed. Therefore, authors should be aware of citation and referencing rules and apply them carefully:

Citation/Paraphrasing: If a thought, discussion, or assertion from a source is cited, and the cited view is paraphrased in the researcher's own words, in-text citation should be used. In this method, the citation is provided in parentheses after the quotation (Author's Last Name, Year of Publication: Page Number). Citations are written in the same font size as the text. A footnote may be provided at the end of the page if an explanation about a subject is desired.

Quotation/Verbatim: If a section from the referenced source is taken exactly as it is, without any alteration, it is placed "within double quotation marks," and the source is cited in parentheses after the quotation in the text (Author's Last Name, Year of Publication: Page Number). Direct quotations within the quoted text are indicated using 'single quotation marks'. If the directly quoted section exceeds three lines (more than forty words), it is presented as a separate paragraph. For the differentiation of long quotations from the main text, it is preferred to use a font size one point smaller than the normal text size and the entire paragraph should be indented from the left margin. In direct quotations, some words, sentences, and paragraphs may be omitted as long as the meaning remains unchanged. Three dots (...) are used to indicate the omitted parts. It is not correct to write the section quoted from a source without being included in "double quotation marks" and just to indicate the source at the end. Failure to comply with these rules may subject the author to accusations of publication ethics violation (Plagiarism).

After passing the Preliminary Review and Plagiarism Check stage, the manuscript is reviewed by the relevant editorial board member for problematic issues and academic language-style. This review is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

The manuscript that has passed the editorial review is submitted for evaluation by at least two external reviewers who have a doctorate thesis, book, or article on the subject. The peer review process is conducted in confidence under the framework of double-blind peer review. The reviewer is asked to express his/her opinion and judgment on the study he/she reviewed either on the text or with a justification of at least 150 words on the online referee form. The author is given the right to object and defend his/her views if he/she does not agree with the reviewer's opinions. The editorial board member facilitates mutual communication between the author and the reviewer while preserving confidentiality. If both referee reports are positive, the study is submitted to the Editorial Board for evaluation with the proposal of publication. In case one of the two referees expresses a negative opinion, the study is sent to a third referee. Studies can be published with the positive opinions of at least two referees. The publication of book and symposium evaluations and doctoral thesis abstracts is decided based on the evaluations of at least two internal referees (relevant editorial board members and/or publishing board members).

If requested by the reviewer to make corrections in the reviewed manuscript, the relevant reports are sent to the author and the author is asked to make corrections in his/her work. The author makes the corrections with the "Track Changes" feature enabled in the Word program or indicates the changes in red color in the text. The author submits the corrected text to the editorial board member.

The reviewer who requested the correction checks whether the author has made the corrections requested in the manuscript.

Authors of papers that receive a "publishable" decision by two reviewers are asked to expand the "abstract" section of the papers to be 300-305 words.

Papers that have undergone the peer review process are reviewed by the editor, and if necessary, the author is requested to make corrections. The control process by the editor is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Papers that have undergone Turkish language control are reviewed by the editor, and if necessary, the author is requested to make corrections. The control process by the editor is completed within a maximum of 15 days.

Manuscripts that have undergone technical, academic, and linguistic reviews are examined by the Editorial Board to decide whether they will be published and, if so, in which issue they will be included. The decision is made by a majority vote of the Board. In case of equality, the final decision is made in favor of the editor's decision.

Manuscripts approved for publication by the Editorial Board are typeset and prepared for publication and sent to the author for review. This stage lasts a maximum of 15 days.