Predatory journals are illegitimate publications that try to exploit researchers for their own gain. They use methods such as rapid pay-to-publish models, fake editorial boards, fraudulent impact factors, and deceptive journal titles that appear legitimate in order to get your articles and/or payments from you. Typically, they will ask for payment to publish in their journal; in order to profit from the professional pressure on researchers to publish.
Publishing in a predatory journal can give others a bad impression of you, prevent your article from being widely read, and prevent your works from being re-published by legitimate publications.
How do I avoid predatory journals?
There are a number of best practices that you can follow:
- Look up the journal by name. Be wary of names that are close to or similar to well-known journals, but not exact.
- Look up and contact the editor(s) on another website. A common tactic of predatory journals is to create a fake editorial board of well-known authors. Often times, these authors don't know that they're listed and have nothing to do with the journal.
- Be wary of any journal asking for payment to publish or accelerate publication of your work.
- Be wary of journals that contact you asking for you to publish your work with them.
- Be wary of journals with an extremely short peer review period or journals that ask who you would like to peer review your work.
- Avoid journals using fake impact factors (Global Impact Factor, Index Copernicus Value, Citefactor, or the Universal Impact Factor).
- Try to search Google to verify a journal's stated impact factor
