So You Want to Publish an Article...: Evaluating Journals and Publishers

Predatory publishing is a term used to describe a deceptive publishing practice. Common characteristics or complaints associated with predatory publishing practices are:

• listing academics as members of their editorial boards without their knowledge
• mimicking the branding, name, or website style of an established, well-known journal
• accepting articles without peer review
• aggressively soliciting articles from academics
• citing fake impact factors

Journal Name and Owners

• Journal name should be distinctive, easily discerned from other journals, and not misleading as to the journal's origin or associations to other journals.
• The ownership and/or management of a journal should not be misleading and should be clearly indicated on the journal's website.
• Red flags include: A journal name that sounds somewhat familiar, but is actually a derivative of a legitimate journal name.

Journal Basics

• Publishing schedule (the frequency of journal publication) should be clearly defined.
• Accessibility of publications and individual articles, whether by subscription, pay-per-view- or open access, should be clearly defined.
• Plan for the electronic backup and preservation of the access to journal content in the event the journal ceases publication should be clearly defined.
• Red flags include: Lacking indexing in a recognized citation system such as PubMed or within a legitimate online directory such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), claiming broad coverage across multiple specialties in medicine or across multiple subspecialties in a particular discipline, a large collection of journals that have been started very recently and/or that contain no or few published articles, are inaccessible or are of obviously poor quality.

Peer Review and Editorial Board

• Journals should identify their peer review status and not promise manuscript acceptance. Peer review process and method should be clearly defined on the journal website, including peer review times that allow the reviewer adequate time.
• Journals should have a governing body comprised of recognized experts in the subject area. The full names and affiliations of the this governing body should be clearly visible.
• Research misconduct should be discouraged with reasonable steps to identify and prevent such misconduct. COPE guidelines, or their equivalent, should be followed in cases where misconduct has been alleged.
• Red flags include: Promise of unrealistically quick peer review, lack of information about a journal’s peer-review process, an editorial board consisting of members from outside the specialty or outside the country in which the journal is published, a submission system that is overly simple with few questions asked and no conflict-of-interest or authorship qualification information requested.

Website

• Website should include statements on the aim and scope of the journal, information on publishing for the journal, and have ISSNs clearly displayed.
• Website should include contact information for the editorial office including the full names and affiliations of the journal editors.
• Websites should clearly state policies on publishing ethics, including authorship and contributorship, ethical oversight, conflicts of interest, data sharing and reproducibility, intellectual property and options for the discussion and corrections of publications.
• Red flags include: Poor graphics, misused language, dead links, aggressive advertising, fake or missing street addresses and phone numbers.

Copyright and Fees

• Copyright and licensing policies should be clearly indicated on the journal's website, including terms for each publication format, Creative Commons licensing allowances, and any policies on the use of the final accepted version of the manuscript on third party repositories.
• Any fees or charges* required for manuscript processing and publishing should be clearly stated and defined before the author begins preparing their manuscript for submission.
• Red flags include: Article processing charges that are not transparent or are payable on submission. Charges should not be dependent on the outcome of peer review.

Marketing

• Advertising policy should be clearly stated. The decision making and influence of advertisements should be completely separate from manuscript publication decisions.
• Any direct marketing should be appropriate, unobtrusive, and truthful, not including any misleading information regarding the journal or publisher.
• Red flags include: Emails sent by publishers or journals that aggressively solicit researchers.

*At this time, Advocate Health - Midwest Library is unable to financially support authorship.