Instructions to Authors

Archives of Epilepsy is a scientific, open access periodical published in accordance with independent, unbiased, and double-blinded peer-review principles. The journal is the official online-only publication of Turkish Epilepsy Society, and the journal is a quarterly publication, published on March, June, September, and December. The publication language of the journal is English and the journal accepts English manuscripts. The authors of the Turkish articles are required to send English version of their article after their manuscript is accepted.

The aim of the journal is to publish original research articles of scientific and clinical value on epilepsy diseases. The Archives of Epilepsy also publishes reviews, rare case reports, and letters to the editors.

The target audience of the journal includes specialists, researchers and professionals who working and interested in the fields of psychiatry, neurology, psychology, behavioral sciences, and neuroscience.

PEER REVIEW PROCESS
Manuscripts submitted to Archives of Epilepsy will go through a double-blind peer-review process. Each submission will be reviewed by at least two external, independent peer reviewers who are experts in their fields in order to ensure an unbiased evaluation process. The editorial board will invite an external and independent editor to manage the evaluation processes of manuscripts submitted by editors or by the editorial board members of the journal. The Editor in Chief is the final authority in the decision-making process for all submissions.

Originality, high scientific quality, and citation potential are the most important criteria for a manuscript to be accepted for publication. Manuscripts submitted for evaluation should not have been previously presented or already published in an electronic or printed medium. The journal should be informed of manuscripts that have been submitted to another journal for evaluation and rejected for publication. The submission of previous reviewer reports will expedite the evaluation process. Manuscripts that have been presented in a meeting should be submitted with detailed information on the organization, including the name, date, and location of the organization.

To read Journal’s Ethical Policy, please click here.

PREPRINT
Archives of Epilepsy does not consider preprint publications as prior publication. In other words, authors are allowed to present and discuss their findings on a non-commercial preprint server before submission to a journal.

Authors must provide the journal with the pre-print server deposition of their article accompanying its DOI during initial submission.

If the article is published in the Archives of Epilepsy, it is the responsibility of the authors to update the archived preprint and link it to the published version of the article.

AUTHORSHIP
Each person listed as an author should fulfill the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE - www.icmje.org). The ICMJE recommends that authorship is based on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work he/she has done, an author should be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work. Also, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors.

All those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged in the title page of the manuscript.

Archives of Epilepsy requires corresponding authors to submit a signed and scanned version of the Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship form (available for download https://archepilepsy.org/) during the initial submission process to act appropriately on authorship rights and to prevent ghost or honorary authorship. If the editorial board suspects a case of “gift authorship,” the submission will be rejected without further review. As part of the submission of the manuscript, the corresponding author should also send a short statement declaring that he/she accepts to undertake all the responsibility for authorship during the submission and review stages of the manuscript.

CHANGE OF AUTHORSHIP
Archives of Epilepsy reviews the authorship according to the author’s declaration in the Title Page, thus it is the authors responsibility to send the final order of the complete author names. Requests in the change of authorship (e.g. removal/addition of the authors, change in the order etc) after submission are subject to editorial approval. Editorial Board will investigate this kind of cases and act following COPE flowcharts. 

Change of authorship requests should be submitted to the Editorial Office with an official letter stating the reasons of the change. The letter must be signed by all authors and include their approval on the change in authorship. If the request is approved by the Editorial Board, authors need to submit a new Copyright Agreement Form according to the final order list.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
The manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with ICMJE-Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated in May 2022 - http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf). Authors are required to prepare manuscripts in accordance with the CONSORT guidelines for randomized research studies, STROBE guidelines for observational original research studies, STARD guidelines for studies on diagnostic accuracy, PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analysis, ARRIVE guidelines for experimental animal studies, and TREND guidelines for non-randomized public behavior. To find the right guideline for your research, please complete the questionnaire by Equator Network here. 

The style of the manuscripts should be prepared according to AMA Manual of Style 11th Edition.

Manuscripts can only be submitted through the journal’s online manuscript submission and evaluation system, available at https://archepilepsy.org/.  Manuscripts submitted via any other medium and submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be evaluated.

Manuscripts submitted to the journal will first go through a technical evaluation process where the editorial office staff will ensure that the manuscript has been prepared and submitted in accordance with the journal’s guidelines. Submissions that do not conform to the journal’s guidelines will be returned to the submitting author with technical correction requests.

Authors are required to submit the following:
· Copyright Agreement and Acknowledgement of Authorship Form, and
· ICMJE Potential Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form (should be filled in by all contributing authors) during the initial submission. These forms are available for download at https://archepilepsy.org/.

Preparation of the Manuscript
Title page: A separate title page should be submitted with all submissions and this page should include:
· The full title of the manuscript as well as a short title (running head) of no more than 50 characters,
· Name(s), affiliations, highest academic degree(s), and ORCID IDs of the author(s),
· Grant information and detailed information on the other sources of support,
· Name, address, telephone (including the mobile phone number), and email address of the corresponding author,
· Acknowledgment of the individuals who contributed to the preparation of the manuscript but who do not fulfill the authorship criteria.

Abstract: An abstract should be submitted with all submissions except for Letters to the Editor. The abstract of Research Articles should be structured with subheadings (Objective, Methods, Results, and Discussion). Please check Table 1 below for word count specifications.

Keywords: Each submission must be accompanied by a minimum of three to a maximum of five keywords for subject indexing at the end of the abstract. The keywords should be listed in full without abbreviations. The keywords should be selected from the National Library of Medicine, Medical Subject Headings database (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html).

Main Points: All submissions except letters to the editor should be accompanied by 3 to 5 “main points” which should emphasize the most noteworthy results of the study and underline the principal message that is addressed to the reader. This section should be structured as itemized to give a general overview of the article. Since “Main Points” targeting the experts and specialists of the field, each item should be written as plain and straightforward as possible.

Manuscript Types
Research Articles: This is the most important type of article since it provides new information based on original research. Acceptance of original papers will be based upon the originality and importance of the investigation. The main text of original articles should be structured with Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion subheadings. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Original Articles.

Clinical Trials 
Archives of Epilepsy adopts the ICMJE's clinical trial registration policy, which requires that clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov. 

Instructions for the clinical trials are listed below.

• Clinical trial registry is only required for the prospective research projects that study the relationship between a health-related intervention and an outcome by assigning people. 
• To have their manuscript evaluated in the journal, author should register their research to a public registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment.
• Based on most up to date ICMJE recommendations, Archives of Epilepsy accepts public registries that include minimum acceptable 24-item trial registration dataset.
• Authors are required to state a data sharing plan for the clinical trial registration. Please see details under “Data Sharing” section.
• For further details, please check ICMJE Clinical Trial Policy at
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

Data Sharing
As of 1 January 2019, a data sharing statement is required for the registration of clinical trials. Authors are required to provide a data sharing statement for the articles that reports the results of a clinical trial. The data sharing statement should indicate the items below according to the ICMJE data sharing policy:
• Whether individual deidentified participant data will be shared
• What data in particular will be shared
• Whether additional, related documents will be available
• When the data will be available and for how long
• By what access criteria will be shared

Authors are recommended to check the ICMJE data sharing examples at
http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

While submitting a clinical trial to Archives of Epilepsy,
• Authors are required to make registration to a publicly accessible registry according to ICMJE recommendations and the instructions above.
• The name of the registry and the registration number should be provided in the Title Page during the initial submission.
• Data sharing statement should also be stated in the Title Page even the authors do not plan to share it.  

Clinical trial and data sharing policy of the journal will be valid for the articles submitted from 1 August 2021.

Reporting Statistical Analysis 
Statistical analysis to support conclusions is usually necessary. Statistical analyses must be conducted in accordance with international statistical reporting standards (Altman DG, Gore SM, Gardner MJ, Pocock SJ. Statistical guidelines for contributors to medical journals. Br Med J 1983: 7; 1489-93). Information on statistical analyses should be provided with a separate subheading under the Materials and Methods section and the statistical software that was used during the process must be specified.

Values for reporting statistical data, such as P values and CIs should be presented and rounded appropriately. P values should be expressed to 2 digits to the right of the decimal point unless the first 2 digits are zeros, in which case 3 digits to the right of the decimal place should be provided (eg, instead of P < .01, report as P = .002). However, values close to .05 may be reported to 3 decimal places because the .05 is an arbitrary cut point for statistical significance (eg,  P = .053). P values less than .001 should be designated as P < .001 rather than exact values (eg, P = .000006).

Units should be prepared in accordance with the International System of Units (SI).

Editorial Comments: Invited brief editorial comments on selected articles are published in the Archives of Epilepsy. Editorials should not be longer than 1000 words excluding references. Editorial comments aim to provide a brief critical commentary by reviewers with expertise or with high reputation in the topic of the research article published in the journal. Authors are selected and invited by the journal to provide such comments. Abstract, Keywords, and Tables, Figures, Images, and other media are not included.

Review Articles: Reviews prepared by authors who have extensive knowledge on a particular field and whose scientific background has been translated into a high volume of publications with a high citation potential are welcomed. These authors may even be invited by the journal. Reviews should describe, discuss, and evaluate the current level of knowledge of a topic in clinical practice and should guide future studies. The subheadings of the review articles should be planned by the authors. However, each review article should include an “Introduction” and a “Conclusion” section. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Review Articles.

Case Reports: There is limited space for case reports in the journal and reports on rare cases or conditions that constitute challenges in diagnosis and treatment, those offering new therapies or revealing knowledge not included in the literature, and interesting and educative case reports are accepted for publication. The text should include Introduction, Case Presentation, and Discussion with an unstructured abstract. Please check Table 1 for the limitations for Case Reports.

Authors can submit dynamic images (e.g. video files) or include supplemental image files for online presentation that further illustrate the educational purpose of the essay.

Letters to the Editor: This type of manuscript discusses important parts, overlooked aspects, or lacking parts of a previously published article. Articles on subjects within the scope of the journal that might attract the readers’ attention, particularly educative cases, may also be submitted in the form of a “Letter to the Editor.” Readers can also present their comments on the published manuscripts in the form of a “Letter to the Editor.” Abstract, Keywords, and Tables, Figures, Images, and other media should not be included. The text should be unstructured. The manuscript that is being commented on must be properly cited within this manuscript.

*Word limit should not include the abstract, references, tables, and figure legends.

Tables
Tables should be included in the main document, presented after the reference list, and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text. A descriptive title must be placed above the tables. Abbreviations used in the tables should be defined below the tables by footnotes (even if they are defined within the main text). Tables should be created using the “insert table” command of the word processing software and they should be arranged clearly to provide easy reading. Data presented in the tables should not be a repetition of the data presented within the main text but should be supporting the main text.

Figures and Figure Legends
Figures, graphics, and photographs should be submitted as separate files (in TIFF or JPEG format) through the submission system. The files should not be embedded in a Word document or the main document. When there are figure subunits, the subunits should not be merged to form a single image. Each subunit should be submitted separately through the submission system. Images should not be labeled (a, b, c, etc.) to indicate figure subunits. Thick and thin arrows, arrowheads, stars, asterisks, and similar marks can be used on the images to support figure legends. Like the rest of the submission, the figures too should be blind. Any information within the images that may indicate an individual or institution should be blinded. The minimum resolution of each submitted figure should be 300 DPI. To prevent delays in the evaluation process, all submitted figures should be clear in resolution and large in size (minimum dimensions: 100 × 100 mm). Figure legends should be listed at the end of the main document.

All acronyms and abbreviations used in the manuscript should be defined at first use, both in the abstract and in the main text. The abbreviation should be provided in parentheses following the definition.

When a drug, product, hardware, or software program is mentioned within the main text, product information, including the name of the product, the producer of the product, and city and the country of the company (including the state if in USA), should be provided in parentheses in the following format: “Discovery St PET/CT scanner (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI, USA)”

All references, tables, and figures should be referred to within the main text, and they should be numbered consecutively in the order they are referred to within the main text.

Limitations, drawbacks, and the shortcomings of original articles should be mentioned in the Discussion section before the conclusion paragraph.

References
Both in-text citations and the references must be prepared according to the AMA Manual of Style 11th Edition.

While citing publications, preference should be given to the latest, most up-to-date publications. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of references If an ahead-of-print publication is cited, the DOI number should be provided. Journal titles should be abbreviated in accordance with the journal abbreviations in Index Medicus/MEDLINE/PubMed. When there are six or fewer authors, all authors should be listed. If there are seven or more authors, the first three authors should be listed followed by “et al.” In the main text of the manuscript, references should be cited in superscript after punctuation. The reference styles for different types of publications are presented in the following examples.

Journal Article: Gülgönen S, Demirbilek V, Korkmaz B, Dervent A, Townes BD. Neuropsychological functions in idiopathic occipital lobe epilepsy. Epilepsia. 2000;41(4):405-411.

Book Section: Fikremariam D, Serafini M. Multidisciplinary approach to pain management. In: Vadivelu N, Urman RD, Hines RL, eds. Essentials of Pain Management. New York, NY: Springer New York; 2011:17-28.

Books with a Single Author: Bart ML. Current practice of epilepsy. 1st ed. St. Luis, MO: Mosby; 1991.

Editor(s) as Author: Etzel RA, Balk SJ, eds. Pediatric Environmental Health. American Academy of Pediatrics; 2011.

Conference Proceedings: Morales M, Zhou X. Health practices of immigrant women: indigenous knowledge in an urban environment. Paper presented at: 78th Association for Information Science and Technology Annual Meeting; November  6-10; 2015; St Louis, MO. Accessed March 15, 2016. https://www.asist.org/files/meetings/am15/proceedings/openpage15.html 

Thesis: Maiti N. Association Between Behaviours, Health Characteristics and Injuries Among Adolescents in the United States. Dissertation. Palo Alto University; 2010.

Online Journal Articles: Tamburini S, Shen N, Chih Wu H, Clemente KC. The microbiome in early life: implications for health outcometes. Nat Med. Published online July 7, 2016. doi:10.1038/nm4142 

Websites:  International Society for Infectious Diseases. ProMed-mail. Accessed February 10, 2016. http://www.promedmail.org 

Epub Ahead of Print Articles: Cai L, Yeh BM, Westphalen AC, Roberts JP, Wang ZJ. Adult living donor liver imaging. Diagn Interv Radiol. 2016 Feb 24. doi: 10.5152/dir.2016.15323. [Epub ahead of print].

REVISIONS
When submitting a revised version of a paper, the author must submit a detailed “Response to the reviewers” that states point by point how each issue raised by the reviewers has been covered and where it can be found (each reviewer’s comment, followed by the author’s reply and line numbers where the changes have been made) as well as an annotated copy of the main document. Revised manuscripts must be submitted within 30 days from the date of the decision letter. If the revised version of the manuscript is not submitted within the allocated time, the revision option may be canceled. If the submitting author(s) believe that additional time is required, they should request this extension before the initial 30-day period is over.

Accepted manuscripts are copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, and format by professional language editors. Once the publication process of a manuscript is completed, it is published online on the journal’s webpage as an ahead-of-print publication before it is included in its scheduled issue. A PDF proof of the accepted manuscript is sent to the corresponding author and their publication approval is requested within 2 days of their receipt of the proof.

Editor: Seher Naz Yeni
Address: Department of Neurology, İstanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkiye
Phone: +90 (212) 529 77 80
E-mail: [email protected]

Publisher: Turkish Epilepsy Society
Address: Maslak AOS.55 Sok.No:2 42 Maslak Sitesi A Blok No: 277 Sarıyer / İstanbul, Turkiye

Corporate Contributor: Galenos
Address: Molla Gürani Mahallesi, Kaçamak Sokak No: 21 34093 Fındıkzade, İstanbul, Turkiye
Phone: +90 (212) 621 99 25
E-mail: [email protected]
Web page: www.galenos.com.tr