A Glossary of Academic Publishing and Peer Review
A living glossary of key terms in academic publishing and peer review. Updated regularly to reflect new practices, pressures, and language in scholarly communication.
Table Of Contents
Academic publishing comes with its own language. Some terms are straightforward, others are debated or misused. This glossary is here to help clarify them. We’re not just defining buzzwords. Many of these terms carry history, tension, or controversy. That’s why we keep this glossary updated to include new and emerging terms as they appear.
Author Processing Charge (APC)
- A fee charged to authors to make their article open access. APCs help cover publishing costs but can be a barrier for underfunded researchers.
Citation Coercion
- When editors or reviewers pressure authors to add irrelevant citations — often to their own work — to boost citation counts.
Conflict of Interest (COI)
- Any personal, financial, or professional relationship that could influence research or peer review. Authors and reviewers are expected to disclose these.
Desk Rejection
- When an editor rejects a submission without sending it to peer review — often due to poor fit, lack of originality, or quality concerns.
Editorial Misconduct
- Unethical behavior by editors, such as manipulating peer review, favoring certain authors, or blocking critical work.
Ghost Authorship
- When someone who made a significant contribution to a paper is left off the author list, often to conceal involvement or avoid accountability.
Impact Factor (IF)
- A journal-level metric indicating the average number of citations to articles over two years. Often misused as a proxy for article or author quality.
Paper Mills
- Organizations that produce and sell fake or fabricated academic papers, often with fake data, authorship-for-sale, and fraudulent peer review.
Peer Review Ring
- A coordinated group that manipulates the peer review process, often by recommending each other as reviewers or using fake identities.
Predatory Journals
- Deceptive journals that charge publication fees without providing genuine peer review or editorial standards.
Retraction
- The formal removal of a published article, usually due to errors or misconduct. Retractions correct the record but don’t always imply wrongdoing.
Retraction Stigma
- The negative perception or professional harm that can follow a retraction — even when the author acted in good faith.
Reviewer Bias
- When a reviewer’s evaluation is influenced by non-scientific factors like nationality, gender, institutional affiliation, or rivalry.
Reviewer Fatigue
- The exhaustion or burnout researchers experience from frequent review requests, often without compensation or recognition.
Salami Slicing
- The practice of breaking one study into multiple smaller papers to increase publication count, sometimes reducing clarity and impact.
