What is Predatory Publishing?
What is predatory publishing?
"Predatory publishers or journals are those which charge authors a fee for publication with no intention of providing the expected services – such as editorial or peer review – in return. Charging a fee is a legitimate business model, but the publisher should be providing a good publishing service in return. Authors, realizing that they have submitted their paper to a questionable publisher, can find they are charged a large fee if they want to withdraw their article"*
*About predatory publishing • Think. Check. Submit. (n.d.). Think. Check. Submit. Retrieved July 28, 2022, from https://thinkchecksubmit.org/resources/about-predatory-publishing/
Think, Check, Submit
What to look out for?
- Is this journal scholary? Is it connected to a scholarly organization or publisher?
- Is it peer reviewed?
- What are the submission policies of the journal?
- Is it indexed in a trusted database or index? (PubMed, PsycINFO)
- Is the title of the journal similar to a highly cited journal?
- Are there grammatical errors on the journal homepage?
- Are you receiving unsolicited or spam email?
Helpful Tools
- Cabell's Scholarly Analytics This link opens in a new window
Cabell's is the complete source for journal info, evaluation metrics, and submission details-for universities of any size.
- DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) This link opens in a new windowAn online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals.