What do predatory journals look like?

If you have been in academic publishing for a while you have likely received multiple invitation from shady publishing ventures, which solicit content and ask you to pay for its publication. These emails come from what are known as predatory journals. This article aims to help you identify such journals, by providing a list of some typical features. In this article, I will describe a specific example that I recently received, but the features I point out are fairly typical.

What are predatory journals?

Predatory journals are dishonest publishing ventures that mimic the academic publishing model in order to collect money from naïve or desperate academics. They operate by publishing work in a format that resembles a scholarly publication but do not provide any real value to the publication. I use the term real value, here, to describe things such expert feedback, high visibility or academic recognition (I am conscious of the fact that this is not a perfect definition of value).

There are many articles around, which describe what predatory publications look like. But these lists are not always very helpful because –just like pornography– predatory publishing is easy to recognise once you know what it is, but hard to accurately define. So what I want to do in this post is take a different approach and share an example of a predatory journal that could perhaps help you develop a better understanding of what such publications look like.

An example of a predatory journal

As is typical for such pseudo-academic enterprises, the journal that I will describe came to my attention through an unsolicited message. Here’s what it looked like.

Call for Research Papers, Interviews, Book Reviews, Poems n Short Stories for LANGLIT: An International Peer Reviewed Open Access Journal ISSN 2349 – 5189.. (Vol.2 Issue 1) Deadline for Paper Submission: 10th Aug 2015  Date of Publication : 30th Aug 2015 [redacted]@gmail.com Sincerely hope that you will contribute.. http://www.langlit.org

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Some red flags to look for

Super-fast publication

A clear sign that this journal attempts to deceive prospective authors and readers is mismatch between the claim that they practice peer-reviewed and the timeframe they provide. Typically, peer review lasts several months. However, the time from submission to publication in this journal is merely 20 days, which is too short for meaningful peer review and corrections.

Article Processing Charges

To their credit, the publishers in this example are reasonably upfront about their Article Processing Charges (link no longer active). The privilege of placing your work in their journal will only set you back 500 Indian Rupees, which is about 7€ (£5, $8, or a few thousand Greek Drachmas should things go south). This sets them apart from the worst of predatory journals, but does little to improve their academic standing.

Poor content

The journal misrepresents its content when stating that they publish “high-quality written works presenting original research with profound ideas and insightful thoughts”. A cursory glance through their latest issue (vol. 1, issue 4) shows that it contains approximately 150 (!) main submissions, plus a few dozens of interviews, short stories (e.g., A Cyborg Shipwrecked on our Shore) and poems (including Bliss of Love, Eternal Love, Love’s Sake and Proud Sacred Love). Of the papers in the issue, only one was empirical, in the sense that I understand the word, and –at the risk of sounding snobbish– it failed to impress me.

Poor presentation

From the looks of it, the article processing charges for this journal do not include a proofreading service. Here’s a sample of the content.

I have discussed this journal with Jeffrey Beall, who curates an authoritative index of predatory publishers, and he concurs with my assessment. You can now find LangLit in his list of standalone “potential, possible or probable predatory journals”. (update: Sadly, Beall’s list is currently defunct).

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Still thinking of publishing in a predatory journal?

You may think that there’s little harm in submitting a unambitious paper to a journal that has a credible-sounding title and only charges a modest fee. If that is the case, I would encourage you to think twice.

Publishing in a predatory journal
means wasting your work

First, such a publication will harm your reputation. Any merits the paper has will be lost because of its association with bad research and mediocre poetry. Moreover, once published in a bogus journal, a paper is unpublishable elsewhere, and that includes future revisions. Not to put too fine a point to it, publishing research in a predatory journal means wasting your work. Finally, there are better ways to gainfully spend even a small amount of money. For example, you could buy reference materials, or donate to charity that supports teacher development in under-resourced settings.

As for your article, you might consider sending it out to one of many excellent open-access journals that do not charge publication fees. Alternatively, if your work doesn’t fit their publication needs, you can always share it in a blog post!

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