Suleyman TUREDI, Orhan CINAR, Arzu DENIZBASI

Esteemed colleagues,

With your support, the Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine has now been in publication for over 10 years, never compromising on quality, scientificity or impartiality. We believe that our journal, which has carried more than 500 scientific studies, has come to represent Turkey's scientific memory bank for emergency medicine.

Our journal is part of the Tübitak-Ulakbim Turkish Medical Database and the Turkish Citation Database, the most prestigious database in the country. It also appears in the indices of such respected international databases as EBSCOhost, Index Copernicus, DOAJ, Gale/Cengage Learning, SCOPUS and EMBASE. The primary aim of our journal now is to join the category of journals scanned by SCI, SCI-E and PubMed and thus to speak to the entire scientific world. In order for that to happen, the editors and publication board in particular and our reviewers, authors and readers, whom we regard as one large family, all bear a major responsibility.

In order for the journal to achieve that aim, it is not enough by itself for us just to write and publish valuable studies with a high citation potential. As we all now know, it is very important for this journal to be published in English in order for it to be read and shared more widely. To that end, the publication board of the Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine has decided that the journal will be published entirely in English as of the first issue of 2014. Papers submitted in Turkish during 2014 will be accepted, but at the end of a one-year transitional period the journal will only accept submissions written in English. During that period we are obliged to adopt a policy of positive discrimination in favor of submissions written in English. We would ask for our authors’ understanding and for them to make as many submissions as possible in English.

In addition, it is also of the greatest important for us to cite papers published in our journal for us to be able to join the prestigious indices mentioned. We regret to state that as Turkish scientists we do not always exhibit the sensitivity we demonstrate for the growth and development of our country when it comes to citing our national journals, one of the most important factors in their growth and development. This has been the main barrier in the face of previous applications to the databases listed above, and remains the main barrier to future ones. To that end, all papers on a subject published in our journal can be easily and freely accessed using the search minor on the journal home page. We would respectfully request you to examine our journal archives as you prepare your scientific papers and to support this journal with your citations.

The journal will also be adopting a policy of a faster, constructive and instructive evaluation in the new publishing term. Thank you for your continuing support and interest.

The editors of the Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine