What Is Predatory Publishing?
The open access movement has brought great opportunities for researchers to share scientific research more broadly, but also gave rise to unethical publishing companies who wish to profit from scientific research and exploit researchers' desire to publish their materials.
The following consensus definition of predatory publishing was published in Nature, December 2019
Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.
Predatory journals exploit the Open Access publishing model to mislead authors to publish with them. Common traits of predatory publishing include a lack of transparency, deception, and dishonesty. Publishers of predatory journals will accept almost any article that they are paid to publish, and these published articles are not subject to adequate peer or editorial review as they would be at a legitimate scholarly journal; some journals have no peer-review practices at all.
This guide will help you to evaluate whether or not a journal is predatory.
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- Unprofessional website with noticeable errors
- Scope of journal is not clear
- No ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)
- Journal is not published by reputable or known publisher
- Looks like a trade journal, not a scholarly journal
- No clear description of publishing process
- No clear information about its peer review practices on its website
- Promises quick turnaround and publication
- No clear policies on retraction, corrections/errata, or plagiarism (see the ICMJE Recommendations for more detailed discussion about best practices)
- Low Article Processing Charge (less than $150)
- Lack of clarity around copyright
- No clear information on whether and how journal content will be archived and preserved
- Not indexed by MEDLINE, Scopus, or other legitimate abstracting or indexing services or databases
- Publisher/journal email address is generic (e.g., @gmail.com)
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