ISNAD Citation Style- Persian

 The ISNAD Citation Style is a Turkey-based academic writing and referencing style developed to be used in studies carried out in the fields of Humanities and Social Science such as Anthropology, Archeology and Art History, Geography, Language and Literature, Education, Philosophy, Folklore, Law, Economics and Administrative Sciences, Theology, Psychology, Arts, Social Work, Sociology and History.  The word “isnād (pl. asānīd)” is derived from the root “sanad (pl. asnād)” in Arabic, meaning “to rely on, to lean, to put one’s trust in” in dictionary. Therefore, it means “to ground, to base upon, to take the word back to its owner, to indicate the way through which a word or a narration has been arrived, or to take it back to its origin”. It is used to question and indicate the source of the word as in the example of “what is the origin of your word?” Taking this sense of the word into account, “ISNAD” was chosen as a name for the citation style by the majority (70.4%) of editors who work for the journals publishing in the field of Theology in Turkey. The ISNAD contains all the rules necessary to know and apply in academic writings such as how to determine the title of an academic work, what information should be included in its abstract, how to select the keywords, how the outlining format should be, how to create the tables and figures, how to write the names of authors and the titles of studies carried out in Arabic, Persian or English, how to indicate dates and centuries, what should be considered in the context of publication ethics, how to quote directly or indirectly from the source work, how to cite the references in text or footnotes and how to create bibliography. “Citation” is one of the essentiality of the scientific nature of knowledge as well as a requirement of respect for intellectual property and copyrights. It is a crime of publication ethics when the original source of the text is not cited (plagiarism). Therefore, the sources of a scientific study must be cited correctly and completely with its all bibliographic components so that other researchers can easily access to them. The ISNAD was developed first as “Citation Style for Theological Studies” in 2017, and its first version was published on 12 March 2018 in printed form and online for free of charge. Having gainded interest in the journals belong to the field of Theology and also demanded in other academic fields in Turkey and Turkic Republics, its updated version has been put into service to be used in all of social sciences in September 2018 as the second version of the ISNAD. From now on, the ISNAD can be used in all the fields Humanities and Social Sciences. The ISNAD has been, within a short period of time, adopted by peer-reviewed academic journals and book publications as well as by the faculty deans (in writing graduation thesis) and the Administration of the Institutes of Social Sciences (in writing Master and Ph.D. theses). It also has been integrated into indexes and journal platforms such as TUBITAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) TR Index and TUBITAK DergiPark (Journal Park Platform) as one of the citation styles. In ISNAD citation style, the templates are created in a similar fashion to those of library and world-wide citation management programs like Zotero, Mendeley and EndNote. It is the only citation style launched free of charge for the first time and also the only national citation style. For Turkish to be recognized as a scientific language around the world, it was indispensable to develop a scientific citation style. Having developed in Turkish language and launched free of charge, The ISNAD is more convenient and easier to be learnt and used by Turkish middle school and university students, as compared to the other citation styles that are in English and unaffordable. The scientists in Turkish speaking countries will help strengthen Turkish as a scientific language by preparing their scientific researches such as symposium papers, articles and books according to the ISNAD Citation Style. By the ISNAD, it is targeted to use a common citation style in Turkey and Turkic Republics in the publications prepared in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences. The use of the ISNAD will help detect the citation and the degree of influence by standardizing the citation style in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences in Turkish speaking countries and will make the scientific communication easier in Turkish speaking World. The ISNAD has been initiated for students, academicians, writers who research and write in the Humanities and Social Sciences and for those institutions and organizations publishing in the same field. Many journals who publish in the field of Social Sciences have started using the ISNAD. The number of universities who prefer using the ISNAD in BA senior thesis, MA and Ph.D. thesis is increasing. Furthermore, institutions and organizations organizing national and international symposiums and conferences have started asking their participants to prepare their papers according to the ISNAD. This style, that has been initiated free of cost, having user-friendly interface and citation software add-ons, is gaining acceptance and is being adopted rapidly. Students, writers, researchers and academicians can carry out their “reference and citation” processes easily, fast and free of mistake with the help of the ISNAD’s citation management software add-ons like EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley. The use of the ISNAD continues to increase in Turkey and Turkic Republics.