How to Avoid Predatory Journals

Whether you are a seasoned research scientist, a doctoral student, or a healthcare practitioner trying their hand at writing up research for peer-reviewed publication, the one thing you want to do above all else is this:

Make sure you submit your manuscript to a legitimate journal.

Especially when you are just starting your publishing journey, identifying legitimate, rather than predatory journals, can be a challenge.

That's why we pulled together our top 5 tips for how to identify predatory journals so you can avoid them.

Top 5 Tips for identifying Predatory Journals

• Ignore solicitation emails: The majority of journals that send out email solicitations to potential authors are not high-quality journals. They might not even do any research to see if your research area matches the journal's topic. Best practice: Toss email solicitations in the trash and move on.
• Research the journal and editorial board: Scimago can be a treasure trove of information about a journal. Once you see who the journal's publisher is, check out the journal's own website and see who they list as editorial board members. Then, head over to LinkedIn or Google.com and search for information about those people. Are they really a part of the journal in question? Is their area of expertise aligned with the topic of the journal?
• Check the number of issues per year: This is a little known red flag for newbie researchers. Sometimes, predatory journals publish far more than the standard 12 issues a year (hence, all those solicitation emails--they're trying to fill special issues). Look for journals that publish 6 to 12 issues per year, with possibly 1 or 2 special issues.
  

Three to four months is a realistic length of time for peer review and editing.

• Verify the length of the peer-review process: Pretty much every journal nowadays will publish the dates of "first submission," "revised submission," and "final acceptance" on the first page of a published article. Look up published articles from the journal you are investigating and see how long that window is. If you see a paper was first submitted in August and published only 4 weeks later, it likely did not go through rigorous peer review. Reviewers can be hard to get, and reviewing articles takes time. Short lengths of time from first submission to publication is a red flag.
• Trust your instinct: If something feels wrong, it usually is. If you get the feeling that the process is too easy, or you are being asked to pay thousands of dollars for a service that should be free, stop and do some deeper investigating. Never get into something that makes you uncomfortable.

With those tips, go forth and publish!

We're here if you need assistance.