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Santa Clara UniversityUniversity Library

Predatory Publishing

The purpose of this guide is to help you understand what is predatory journals and how to identify them.

Identifying Predatory Publishers

Warning Signs of Predatory Journals

Tactic
How to Recognize
Solicitation
  • Suspect journals aggressively solicit scholars to submit papers. The solicitation may come as spam or individual emails. Legitimate journals usually do not solicit authors but instead have the authors contact them.
  • The journal agrees to publish your article for a fee before reviewing it.
Peer Review
  • A claim that a journal peer reviewed is not enough. Almost all predatory journals claim to be peer reviewed.
  • The stated time for peer review is extremely short.
  • You are asked whom you would like to review your work.
Impact Factors
  • Be wary of journals that cite bogus impact factors, such as the GIF (Global Impact Factor), Index Copernicus Value, Citefactor, or the UIF (Universal Impact Factor). Some may falsify legitimate impact factors. Impact Factors can be verified via Web of Science, Dimensions or Google.
Editorial Board
  • Members of the editorial board lack qualifications in the field.
  • Different journals by the same publisher have the same editorial board.
  • Predatory journals will sometimes solicit well-known scholars to join their boards in order to lend credibility to their journal but don't let them make decisions. (How you would make this discovery even with good due diligence is hard to imagine.)
  • Listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission and not allowing academics to resign from editorial boards.
Indexing
  • The journal is not indexed in the major indexes in the field as well as general indexes, even though it might claim to be.
  • Some journals falsely claim to be indexed by Thomson Reuters.
Watch Lists
Other Factors
  • The journal is difficult to locate in library catalogs, i.e. few major libraries subscribe to it.
  • The scope is overly broad and/or does not fit well with your research.
  • Publication frequently is irregular or not stated.
  • May have the same or similar name to a legitimate journal. The former is characteristic of hijacked journals.
  • The email address is often non-professional, e.g., (@yahoo.com, ao.com or @gmail.com)