İskender SAYEK, Feza REMZİ, Ertuğrul GÖKSOY, Sadık KILIÇTURGAY

Dear Colleagues,

Turkish Journal of Surgery, in recent years, has undergone a substantial change by means of extraordinary contributions of our colleagues. Meanwhile, as being the main goal of our journal, the infrastructure required to be indexed by international indexes has been established although this was far from being sufficient. In fact, it is particularly important for the surgical practice in our country and for our colleagues that Turkish Journal of Surgery is indexed by PubMed and SCI-E. We have, therefore, decided to make some important improvements in order to have our journal published in accordance with the international medical publication standards and indexed by high order databases such as SCI-E and PubMed. In this regard, significant changes were performed in the design and publication format of the journal by taking account of the results of the survey conducted last year and our workout continuing for the last one year, and these changes were implemented with the first issue of the journal in 2013.

Our intention with this information letter is to share the implemented changes and their rationale:

1. We are introducing the new face of our journal with renewed cover page and inner design. Scope and Objectives, Spelling Rules, Author Contribution Form and Copyright Transfer Form were reviewed and modified in accordance with the international implementations. Particularly, qualifications required by international journals during review and evaluation process were included in the manuscripts. During this change, we attempted to protect those elements that remind us of the traditional appearance.

2. In line with your suggestions, we decided to publish English manuscripts along with the Turkish studies. Therefore, the demand from our colleagues as evidenced by the survey results will not be left unanswered and it would also be more likely to receive manuscripts and naturally citation from different countries. English versions of the manuscripts will be reviewed by an expert committee.

3. Conditions that prevent access to full-text articles were eliminated and we made easier to access online articles.

4. Names of our consultants reviewing the articles will be displayed in the “Acknowledgments” section in the last issue of every volume and only “International Editorial Board” will be displayed on the front page of the journal in order to indicate externalindependent peer-review system as demanded particularly by indexes such as PubMed and SCI-E. We have included in this issue an acknowledgment to our colleagues who served as a referee in 2012 and renewed “International Editorial Board”. We express our gratitude to all our referees for reflecting their scientific background and for their extraordinary support they have provided to bring the journal to these days.

5. After serving between 2009 and 2012, our advisory committee, which is renewed in every 4 years as per our journal's policy, will be renewed and expanded as from 2013. Our main purpose is to provide a working field for our colleagues who are willing to participate in this process. We would like to thank in advance to our academic lecturers who would like to participate in their specific field of interest.

6. We have almost finished our workout for online publication of the manuscripts accepted for publication with the DOI number provided in the form of “Ahead of Print”. Approved manuscripts will be displayed on the web ahead of print date and the researchers will be therefore able to use these data before the publication of the journal. In addition, QR code will be launched as from this issue. Thus, electronic versions of the manuscripts will be accessible through new generation mobile devices.

7. We completed the workout to put into practice international software for the detection of plagiarism and replicated publication. Furthermore, all publications are audited for the presence of ethics committee approval and patient informed consent. The journal will have possession of pre-emptive publication policy against ethical violations by conducting these investigations before launching referee evaluation.

We hope to receive your augmented and sustaining support while setting goals for the new publication season.

Best Regards,
Editorial Board
Iskender SAYEK, Feza REMZI, Ertugrul GOKSOY, Sadik KILICTURGAY