Guidelines for Authors
ICON•S Türkiye Blog
I. Purpose and Scope
The ICON•S Türkiye Blog aims to serve as an effective platform for academic and public debate. It publishes contributions on current issues of public concern that fall within the field of public law, including constitutional law, administrative law, human rights, constitutional adjudication, and comparative public law.
The Blog will feature analyses of current legal developments, academic and conceptual debates, comparative law contributions, assessments of judicial decisions and legislation, and book reviews. It is open to contributions from senior scholars as well as early-career researchers and practitioners.
II. Editorial Principles
Blog posts are not intended to substitute for academic articles; rather, they are intended to discuss a specific problem around a clearly articulated thesis and to offer the reader a normative and analytical framework. Contributions must be original and analytical in orientation.
Originality
Originality means that a blog post makes a new contribution to the scholarly literature, to a debate, or to a problem of practice. An original contribution may consist of a new scholarly argument, a critique of an existing view, a first assessment of a new line of case law or a new regulation, or an examination of a familiar problem from a different theoretical or comparative perspective.
Contributions of the following kinds will not be considered:
- Pieces that merely repeat existing general knowledge and read like a textbook or an encyclopaedia entry.
- Pieces that summarise or promote the author’s previously published articles, books, theses, or conference papers.
- Pieces that merely report a decision, regulation, or event without containing the author’s own assessment.
- Pieces that have been published, or submitted for publication, elsewhere in substantially similar form.
Authors may draw on their earlier work. However, a blog post must go beyond that work and address a new development, a new question, or a new argument. Passages taken from earlier work must be attributed by citation.
A blog post is neither an abridged version of an article nor a set of lecture notes. A blog post is expected to address a single, clearly delimited question and to advance an argument on it.
Where generative AI has been used in a contribution, this must be stated explicitly and in the following form:
In preparing this work, the author(s) used [NAME OF THE TOOL] for [PURPOSE]. After using this tool, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as they deemed necessary and assume full responsibility for the content of the published article. The use of AI does not remove the author’s responsibility for the accuracy and originality of the text.
Topic Selection and Timeliness
Contributions should focus on a current topic of a practical or theoretical nature. Timeliness means that the topic is directly connected to a debate that is ongoing at the time the contribution is submitted.
Examples of current topics:
- A new court decision, statute, bill, administrative regulation, international treaty, or line of case law.
- A problem that has arisen in practice and has not yet been sufficiently discussed.
- A critical assessment of an ongoing theoretical debate in the scholarly literature or of a recently published work (book, article, report, etc.).
- Current developments in comparative law and/or their consequences for Türkiye.
Historical or theoretical topics may also be addressed. In that case, the contribution must make clear why the topic matters for a present-day debate.
Citations and Supporting Sources
Every factual claim and every legal assessment in a contribution must be supported by a citation to a verifiable source. The contribution should engage with the scholarly literature on the subject and position its own contribution within that literature.
Sources expected to be cited:
- Scholarly literature: Books, articles, and other scholarly works directly relevant to the subject, etc.
- Legal sources: Constitutional and statutory provisions, court decisions, international treaties, administrative regulations, and official documents, etc.
- Factual sources: Official statistics, institutional reports, datasets, and reliable press sources, etc.
III. Style Guide
- The Blog may publish contributions in Turkish and in English. Contributions must be written in fluent and clear language consistent with the standards of academic civility. Texts written in Turkish must comply with the rules of the Turkish Language Association.
- Contributions must be between 750 and 1,500 words.
- Titles must be clear, accurately reflect the subject, and, where possible, contain key terms.
- Authors may use subheadings and numbering freely to strengthen the flow of the text.
- Sources must be indicated as hyperlinks within the text; where this is not possible, they must be given in footnotes. Where a hyperlink cannot be provided, sources are cited in short form in accordance with TÜHAS.
- Where emphasis is required, it is achieved through sentence construction and conceptual clarity rather than through typographical devices.
- Simplicity and consistency, rather than unnecessary typographical ornamentation, are essential throughout the text.
IV. Submission, Editorial Process and Feedback
- Contributions must be submitted in Word (.docx) format.
- Contributions are submitted by e-mail to iconstrblog@gmail.com, with the subject line “Blog Submission – [Title]”.
- The author’s name, institutional affiliation or membership information, a short biography, and (optionally) a social media or website link must be included.
- Any conflict of interest must be disclosed to the editors at the time of submission.
- By submitting content for publication on the Blog, the author grants ICON•S Türkiye the right to use that content.
Blog posts are published only after the editorial review and feedback process has been completed. No submitted contribution is published without going through this process. The main stages and principles of the process are as follows:
- Preliminary review: The editors assess whether the contribution meets the expectations set out in this text. Contributions found unsuitable are returned to the author with reasons. Content that is insulting, discriminatory, or amounts to hate speech; content that violates personality rights or may potentially be defamatory; and overtly promotional or marketing material will not be accepted. Criticism may be included, provided that it is not personalised and is expressed in measured terms within the framework of legal argument.
- Editorial review: The contribution is reviewed for originality, coherence of the argument, adequacy of supporting sources, accuracy of citations, and clarity of expression.
- Expert consultation: Where they deem it necessary, the editors may seek the opinion of a scholar who is an expert on the subject.
- Feedback: The editors communicate their assessment and suggested changes to the author in writing.
- Revision: The author revises the contribution in light of the feedback within two weeks. Where the author does not adopt a suggestion, the author informs the editors of the reasons.
- Publication decision: The publication decision rests with the editors. The editors may accept the revised text, request further revisions, or decide not to publish the contribution.
- Final reading: The contribution is published after the author has approved the final text. The editors may make linguistic and stylistic corrections that do not affect the substance of the contribution.
- Corrections: Factual errors identified after publication are remedied by means of a correction note.
Full responsibility for published contributions rests with the author. They may not be construed as the institutional position of ICON•S Türkiye or of its editors.
Submit Your Article
Contributions in English may be sent to iconstrblog@gmail.com with the subject line “Blog Submission – [Title]”.