Okay, let’s talk about predatory journals for a sec, because no one ever taught me this.
Some background: in 2016, I presented a poster at a big conference. Though I thought there would be a publication coming from this work, nothing ever actually happened. It was just this poster presentation and my name, along with others’ and the title, buried in the list of abstracts presented at the end of the program. Then, earlier this year (three years later), I suddenly started getting the emails. Letters from journals saying they had come across my paper, they were having a special edition of their journal that just so happened to align with the exact topic I’d researched, and they were offering me a chance to either be a guest editor or submit a paper to this journal that was almost guaranteed to be accepted and published. These emails. Kept. Coming. And they still are.
At first, I was excited (the chance to finally have this work published!) but extremely wary. For starters, it’s been three freaking years. If my “paper” was so great, wouldn’t they have contacted me sooner? Next, to reiterate, I never published a paper. I have checked on multiple sites and if you search the abstract name and my name, nothing shows up except for the listing from the conference I mentioned before. How in the world did they even track down not only my name and email, but the names of my co-authors? I don’t even do this type of research anymore, so that was an immediate red flag. I also was skeeved out by the little things: that this “special edition” was so specific to my research; that they usually claimed to be working with esteemed PIs at universities overseas (a quick Google search told me that they did exist, but only one of the PIs was actually associated with they type of work I had been doing); that they told me about an “Article Processing Charge” that was in a random foreign currency (another quick Google search told me that this was over $1,800 - no thank you); and that they addressed me as “Dr. ____” when I have not yet attained my PhD, which (I could be wrong here) I feel like an actual journal wouldn’t have done? All of these things were done to lull me into a false sense of security - if these international PIs think my nonexistent paper is good and they’re already calling me “Doctor,” my work must be worth submitting! My faith in their credibility was falling fast. Lastly, I literally just Googled the name of one of the journals and one of the top results followed with “predatory journal.”
I have been ignoring these emails for probably over six months, but I haven’t ever actually learned about what a predatory journal is or how to pick one out. There is a good guide here. Basically, learn about the peer review process (detailed well here), show fishy emails to a senior researcher that you trust, do your own research on the details of the emails, and ultimately… if it seems too good to be true or there are too many red flags, ignore it. Please do not pour out your wallets to these journals!
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