Letter to authors submitting articles

Dear author

This concerns your recently submitted paper, as well as any future papers you may be submitting for publication in either the Creation magazine or the Journal of Creation.

We often receive requests for permission to reprint articles, sometimes years after they are published. We would naturally assume that people giving us their article to publish would be happy for us to use it for the benefit of creation ministry in the future, in whatever way we felt was helpful.

However, for some time we did not have any policy in writing. Also, we had always automatically assumed that permission to reproduce one of our articles was ours to give. But it appears that it could be argued otherwise, if someone should have hostile intent to the ministry in the future. Thus, to avoid any hassle, confusion or ambiguity, or the necessity of going back each time to check with the author, it is now our policy to ask authors to formally assign all such permissions to us in advance. In order for us to go further with your article you will need to read, sign, and return to us the attached Assignment of Copyright. We will keep your permission on file and apply it to all future items you may wish to submit to us for publication.

Will assigning copyright in this way affect your ability to use the information elsewhere?

In some instances you, the author, may be approached to publish the same article in another Journal/Magazine. In virtually all such cases permission would be willingly given, with the request that the original publication be cited. If the submitted article is to subsequently appear in a book written by yourself, once again, permission will almost certainly be given, and in this instance citation would not be necessary.

Please note: Plagiarism (wholly or substantially copying another author’s wording, even for a small part of the article, without quote marks) is unacceptable under any circumstances. (See section 2 in contract, where you are basically acknowledging that it is your work and thus not plagiarized). Whereas a direct quotation can be perfectly OK if it is clearly shown as such and correctly referenced.

Where an article depends heavily on another work, even where different wording has been used, that other work and its author must be appropriately acknowledged in the text or by way of footnoting.

Thank you for your interest in our publications.

Many thanks for your kind understanding.

Margaret Wieland,
Production co-ordinator,
Creation magazine
Creation Ministries International

P.S. Please excuse the formidable-sounding ‘legalese’ in the assignment form, this has been explained to us as necessary to protect this ministry from any problems arising due to the actions of those whose intentions are not as benign as our own.

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