Writing Your Manuscript: Deceptive (Predatory) Publishing

1. For a fast assessment, try a checklist:
   • Think. Check. Submit, has checklists for Journals and Books in addition to many other resources. The site is a cross-industry initiative led by representatives from ALPSP, DOAJ, INASP, ISSN, LIBER, OASPA, STM, UKSG, and individual publishers.
   • Deceptive Publishing from University of Toronto Libraries has checklists in French and English.
2. More generally, consider these "Ten simple rules for avoiding predatory publishing scams" from Leonard et al.
3. If you need any help, contact your Information Specialist to help assess journal publishers.

1. ​The scope of interest includes non-biomedical subjects alongside biomedical topics
2. The website contains spelling and grammar errors
3. Images are distorted/fuzzy, intended to look like something they are not, or which are unauthorized
4. The homepage language targets authors
5. The Index Copernicus is promoted on the website
6. Description of the manuscript handling process is lacking
7. Manuscripts are requested to be submitted via email
8. Rapid publication is promised
9. There is no retraction policy
10. Information on whether and how journal content will be digitally preserved is absent
11. The Article processing/publication charge is very low (e.g., < $150 USD)
12. Journals claiming to be open access either retain copyright of published research or fail to mention copyright
13. The contact email address is non-professional (e.g.,@gmail.com or @yahoo.com)

Shamseer L, Moher D, Maduekwe O, Turner L, Barbour V, Burch R, et al. Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC medicine. 2017;15(1):28-.

• Global impact of these journals is that they are the repositories for unevaluated research, which can be cited and used by other authors. This can falsify the real picture of scientific research and hinder creditable research development. They are impacting the reliability and validity of research. 
• A study published by Moher et al. examined a sample of 1907 papers in more than 200 supposed predatory journals and reported the followings:
  • Only 40% of studies reported ethics approval
  • Of the 17% of articles reporting funding source, US NIH most frequently named
  • India (27% ) and USA (15% ) produced most articles
  • Low quality methodologies used
• In another study published in Neuroscience, the authors analyzing the neurology and neuroscience journals included in PubMed found that:
  • 25 predatory neurology journals were indexed in PubMed, accounting for 24.7% of all predatory neurology journals.
  • 14 predatory neuroscience journals were indexed in PubMed, accounting for 16.1% of all predatory neuroscience journals.
  • Only one of the 188 predatory neuroscience or neurology journals appeared in the DOAJ index.
  • Only 54.6% of the journals deemed predatory in neuroscience actually contained articles.

Dadkhah M, Maliszewski T, Jazi MD. Characteristics of Hijacked Journals and Predatory Publishers: Our Observations in the Academic World. Trends in Pharmacological Sciences. 2016;37(6):415-8.

Leonard M, Stapleton S, Collins P, Selfe TK, Cataldo T. Ten simple rules for avoiding predatory publishing scams. PLoS Computational Biology. 2021;17(9):

Manca A, Martinez G, Cugusi L, Dragone D, Dvir Z, Deriu F. The surge of predatory open-access in neurosciences and neurology. Neuroscience. 2017;353:166-73.

Shamseer L, Moher D, Maduekwe O, Turner L, Barbour V, Burch R, et al. Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC medicine. 2017;15(1):28-.