Special Issues: When They Help and When They Are a Trap.
Waraq · August 3, 2026 · JOURNAL SELECTION
Submit to a special issue when the theme matches your paper and the guest editors are researchers you can identify and respect. Treat the invitation with suspicion when it arrives unsolicited, promises unusually fast publication, and comes from a journal running dozens of parallel issues on unrelated subjects. The format itself is neutral. The risk sits in how a particular journal runs it, so your decision turns on the specific issue in front of you, not on special issues as a category.
Why do journals run so many special issues now?
A special issue is a themed collection of papers coordinated by guest editors rather than the standing editorial board. Journals multiplied them because a guest editor who recruits authors brings in article volume, and under open-access fees that volume is revenue.
The mechanics are simple. A guest editor proposes a theme, sends out a call for papers, invites contributors, and manages review for that batch. A journal that runs one issue a year is doing a considered thing. A journal that runs several hundred at once has turned the format into a pipeline. Neither number is visible from a single invitation, which is why the same email can point to a careful editor or a quota.
What do special issues actually offer you?
A focused readership, a guest editor who knows your subfield, and a clearer read on fit. When the theme is narrow and the editor is a working expert, your paper lands in front of exactly the people who cite that kind of work.
A well-run issue can also move faster, because the review timeline is planned around a deadline instead of an open queue. And fit is easier to judge than for the regular journal: the call for papers states the theme plainly, which is a sharper signal than a broad aims and scope page. If your paper answers the exact question the issue was built around, take it.
Which special issues should make you pause?
Four signals: many parallel issues on unrelated topics, a deadline weeks away for a paper you have not written, an invitation addressed to no one in particular, and guest editors you cannot place in the field. Any one of these alone is a question. Together they are an answer.
Invitation spam is the loudest. A message that praises a paper of yours without naming it, or offers a discount and a short deadline, is recruiting volume, not your specific contribution. The same instinct you would use on a predatory journal applies here, because the two problems overlap. A legitimate journal can still run a weak issue, and a weak issue is where rushed review lives.
How did special issues change indexing decisions?
They put the whole format under scrutiny. In March 2023, Clarivate delisted around 50 journals from Web of Science and said it was reviewing hundreds more, with the high-volume guest-edited special issue model at the centre of the concern.
The clearest case was Hindawi, whose special issues were targeted by paper mills that fabricated content and manipulated peer review. Across 2023 the publisher retracted more than 8,000 articles, concentrated in those issues, and Wiley later retired the Hindawi name entirely. For an individual author, the takeaway is narrow. Indexers now scrutinise special issues, and a journal that leaned on them too hard can lose the indexing that gave its papers their reach. That risk sits beneath the impact factor a journal advertises today.
What should you ask before accepting an invitation?
Five questions, in order: who are the guest editors and can you verify them, how many special issues is this journal running right now, is the deadline realistic for careful work, is the journal currently indexed where you need it, and what is the fee. If you cannot answer the first two from public pages, that is already your answer.
The deadline question matters more than it looks. A timeline that forces you to compress writing and revision is not a shortcut, it is a quality cut you are being asked to accept. Whatever route you choose, the paper still has to survive the same checks a careful reviewer applies, so running your draft against the journal's own rules with a tool like Waraq before you commit tells you whether the fast timeline is even feasible. A receptive editor does not lower the bar. They only shorten the queue.
How does a special issue paper read on your CV?
The same as any other paper, as long as the journal is sound. A reader scanning your record sees the journal name and the year, not whether the paper sat in a special issue or the regular run.
One exception matters. If the journal is later delisted or becomes known for paper-mill issues, that reputation attaches to everything it published, including your careful paper. This is why journal choice matters more than the special-issue label, and why the same discipline you would use choosing a journal for a first paper applies to an invitation that arrives in your inbox. Judge the journal first. Judge the issue second. Let the theme decide only after both pass.