The Hilltop Review
The Hilltop Review is a publication of the Graduate Student Association. This peer-reviewed journal is intended to be interdisciplinary and provides a venue for sharing scholarly and creative work of graduate students at Western Michigan University.
About The Hilltop Review
The mission of The Hilltop Review is to offer graduate students at WMU an opportunity to publish their work in a peer-reviewed journal. The Hilltop Review publishes papers and creative work that, after a thorough review process, are identified as notable contributions to their respective fields. These published works are then made available both at ScholarWorks, where many of our papers have received thousands of downloads across the world and in print. For any questions about The Hilltop Review, please contact Hellen Agbewey, the director and editor, at @email.
Submission Guidelines
The Hilltop Review accepts submissions from any current Western Michigan University graduate student. Each submission is passed on for peer review by a graduate student or faculty member with a background in the submission's subject matter. Papers recommended by the review process are then reviewed for publication by an Editorial Board composed of WMU graduate students.
If interested in having any papers, creative work, or artwork considered for the journal, make your submission by clicking this link to the "Submit Article" page of the journal's ScholarWorks site. To learn more about submission guidelines, please read our detailed Instructions for Submissions.
Awards
The Hilltop Review awards scholarships to three article authors, an artist, and a creative writer each issue. The Editorial Board ranks each article during a double-blind review process, after which the prizes are awarded as follows:
Articles
First prize: $500
Second prize: $250
Third prize: $150
Artwork
$250 and the piece featured on the cover of the issue
Creative writing
$250
In the event of a tie between the Editorial Board members, the general body of the Graduate Student Association will vote to decide the winner. Prizes are submitted directly to the award winner's WMU account. If the award winner has an outstanding negative balance, the award will go toward that balance. If the award winner does not have an outstanding negative balance, the funds will be distributed via a check or direct deposit.
Peer Reviewers
The Hilltop Review is looking for volunteers to serve as reviewers of future submissions. The reviewer position is a wonderful opportunity to gain experience with the publication process of a scholarly journal and serve the graduate community at WMU by promoting scholarship, research, and creative efforts. Students serving as reviewers agree to review at least one article per issue, pending a work in their field of study is submitted. Reviewers will recommend whether the article should be published, returned for a revise and resubmit, or rejected. To apply for the position of peer reviewer, please fill out our Reviewer Application Form.
Most downloaded papers
Each article published in The Hilltop Review is available in PDF format on ScholarWorks. We're proud to feature our ten most downloaded papers below!*
"Academic Achievement of Children in Single Parent Homes: A Critical Review"
Mark S. Barajas
"The Study of Ink Pigment Dispersion Parameters"
Lokendra Pal and Paul D. Fleming III
"Skype: An Appropriate Method of Data Collection for Qualitative Interviews?"
Jessica R. Sullivan
"Max Steiner and the Music of Casablanca"
Coralin Davelaar
"The Myth of Racial Superiority in Sports"
Ian B. Kerr
"Trust, but Verify: Reagan, Gorbachev, and the INF Treaty"
William D. Watson
"Re-visioning White Nudes: Race and Sexual Discourse in Ottoman Harems 1700-1900"
Jennifer M. Black
"Viking Age Arms and Armor Originating in the Frankish Kingdom"
Valerie Dawn Hampton
"Thinking and Feeling: The Influence of Positive Emotion on Human Cognition"
Mark S. Barajas
"Legal and Ethical Considerations for Social Media Hiring Practices in the Workplace"
Andrew S. Hazelton and Ashley Terhorst
* Based on the average number of full-text downloads per day since the paper was posted.