A special issue — sometimes called a topical collection — gathers papers on one theme, usually coordinated by a guest editor with expertise in it. Done properly it is genuinely valuable: it brings scattered work together, attracts readers interested in the topic, and gives a subfield a moment of visibility. Done badly, it has become one of the most exploited weaknesses in scholarly publishing, and several publishers have retracted hundreds of papers from compromised collections at once.
How a legitimate special issue runs
- A guest editor proposes a topic and scope; the journal's editorial team assesses and approves it.
- A public call for papers is posted on the journal site, with the topic, deadline and submission route.
- Submissions enter the same system and the same peer review as ordinary papers.
- The guest editor handles editorial coordination, but a staff or senior editor retains oversight — and handles any paper the guest editor is connected to.
- Accepted papers publish with the standard licence and DOIs, indistinguishable in quality from the rest of the journal.
What a guest-editor proposal should contain
- The topic, its scope, and what a collection adds that regular issues do not
- Each guest editor's current affiliation and ORCID iD
- Each guest editor's declared competing interests
- A realistic timeline for the call, peer review and publication
- How papers by the guest editors, or by their close collaborators, will be handled
If you propose a collection and the journal asks for none of this, ask who checks guest editors and who signs off each decision.
Why they get abused
The guest-editor role delegates editorial power to someone outside the usual staff. If that appointment is not verified, or the oversight is nominal, a bad actor can be handed the ability to accept papers — including their own network's — with fabricated reviews. Paper mills have specifically targeted this route because it scales: one compromised collection can push through dozens of manufactured articles.
The journal, not the guest editor, remains answerable for what it publishes. Three of the ten Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) bear directly on collections: conflicts of interest, peer review processes and journal management.
Signs a published collection has gone wrong
| What you see | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Papers fall well outside the collection's stated topic | Submissions may have been accepted without any scope check |
| Many papers were accepted within days of submission, where dates are shown | Hard to reconcile with real peer review |
| The guest editor is an author on several papers in their own collection | Ask who handled those papers; the answer should be another editor |
| Near-identical titles, structures or figures appear across unrelated author groups | A pattern associated with manufactured papers |
| No institutional profile or publication record can be found for the guest editor | The appointment may never have been verified |
If you see these patterns, write to the journal and list the article DOIs. Our guide to raising a concern about a published paper sets out who to tell and in what order.
Checking an invitation you receive
Unsolicited invitations are normal; indiscriminate ones are not. Before responding:
- Find the call on the journal's own website. If the special issue exists only in the email, stop.
- Check the guest editor. Do they exist, publish in this area, and list the role on their institutional page?
- Read the email for relevance. Legitimate invitations reference your actual work. Generic flattery ("your outstanding contributions to science") sent to a list is a red flag.
- Watch the timeline. "Submit within seven days, publication in two weeks" is incompatible with real peer review.
- Watch how fees are presented. A charge published openly on the journal's site is normal and expected; the warning signs are an invitation whose main content is the fee, any suggestion that payment affects acceptance, or a charge that was never disclosed anywhere before you submitted and surfaces only after acceptance.
- Assess the journal itself using the same checks you would apply anywhere — see how to identify a predatory journal.
If you are asked to be a guest editor
It is a real editorial responsibility, not a line for your CV. Expect to declare conflicts, to hand off any submission you are connected to, to select reviewers you have independently verified, and to reject papers that do not meet the standard — including from colleagues. If a publisher offers you the role with no oversight, no training and a target number of accepted papers, that is not an honour; it is a liability.
Questions to ask before you accept a guest-editor role
- Which permanent editor oversees the collection, and do they see every decision?
- Who handles papers from me, my institution and my co-authors?
- Does the journal verify the identity of every reviewer, including those I invite?
- Is there a target number of papers? A target for submissions is one thing; a target for acceptances is a warning sign.
- Will the call for papers appear on the journal's own website before any invitation goes out?
- Are the journal's charges published on its site before authors submit?
Record the answers in writing. Our guide to vetting an editorial board invitation covers the wider checks on the publisher itself.
The healthy test for any special issue: could this paper have been accepted through the journal's normal route, on the same evidence? If the answer is no, the collection is not doing its job.
Updated 5 September 2026: We corrected text that treated a fee charged on acceptance as a warning sign, and removed a claim that archiving is part of the standard publishing package.
Updated 17 September 2026: We expanded this guide with a proposal checklist, a table of warning signs in published collections and questions to ask before becoming a guest editor.