Scholarly journals asking for donations or fees crossing line?

College Confidential Community
1

<p>I am confused. I have been told by my college counselor that I should NOT submit any scholarly articles to any publications for pay or donation. I have been warned against doing so, and especially when that organization asks for donations. She describes this as a conflict of interest. The Concord Review asks for money to read a paper, asks for donations while your paper is being considered, and a fee to give feedback. I am confused. Thanks.</p>

2

<p>You need to speak with the people in your department to find out what is normal for the journals in your field of study. And yes, many journals do charge page fees.</p>

3

<p>But I am assuming that they should not ask for donations while reviewing my paper?</p>

4

<p>I am not familiar with that publication or its sources of support, so I can’t speak to whether these are normal practices for that publication. But if the publication is a non-profit entity it does occur to me that a request for a donation might have been generated by the fund-raising division of the organization (in which case you would have received it any way because you are on a fund-raising mailing list of theirs), and not represent a request for payment of the equivalent of page charges in advance of review of the article.</p>

5

<p>I would have sworn this was a scam or vanity publication - turns out not to be true, and if you can get them to accept your paper, it’s a pretty big deal, at least according to the NY Times.</p>

<p><a href=“The Concord Review - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Concord_Review&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“Concord Review Showcases Student Writers - The New York Times”>Concord Review Showcases Student Writers - The New York Times;

6

<p>I would agree except for the part of asking for donations while your work is being reviewed?</p>

7

<p>Any organization that directly sends out requests for donations (not through a fund-raising division), and one that is reviewing my work simultaneously, seems like one of these journals that my college counselor is veering me away from. </p>

8

<p>I found another scholarly journal through Cambridge University that doesn’t ask for a fee, donation or name associated with a paper. Papers must be submitted anonymously and feedback goes back to the author , also anonymously</p>