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Predatory Journals & Questionable Conferences

This guide will help you identify predatory journals and questionable conferences (Author: A. Megwalu; Contributor: G. Basu)

Predatory Publishers and Conferences

Predatory journals are run by entrepreneurs who seek to make profits by publishing articles without following proper peer-review process. Therefore, content of articles published in predatory journals are not reliable, and are often not well-written. Authors who submit their work in such journals are usually ask to pay a fee to publish their work.

As the world’s population grew, the number of scholars increased in the academia which forced scholarly organizations to increase the number of research publications in their journals. The rise of Internet in the 1990s worsened this problem as policies regarding how readers could access publications changed. Some of the conniving entrepreneurs took advantage of this issue by creating journals that could be accessible to members of the public for free of charge, while forcing authors to pay for publication fees and not giving them proper benefits for publishing their work.

Adapted from University of Central Missouri

Why Should I Avoid Predatory Publishers?

Submitting your work to predatory journals could have the following consequences:

  1. Your work may not be properly peer-reviewed and respected by members of scholarly communities
  2. Your work may never be published but held by the predatory publisher. You may not be able to submit your work in another journal
  3. It may be difficult to locate your work in reputable research database
  4. You may be charged a fee to publish your work in a predatory journal, and still lose the value of your work
  5. Your publication may disappear after some time