Publishing Tips: Scholarly vs Predatory Publications

University and College libraries subscribe to databases which have had their contents vetted.  This means any of those listed on the Detroit Mercy libraries website are good sources. See the Tools for Assessing Journal Credibility tab for resources that will assist in assessing journals.

Students: If uncertain about a source ask a librarian or your professor.

Faculty: Ask a knowledgeable mentor or a librarian if a journal seems dubious.

THI 322 at NCSU: Royal Society

These are websites put up by entities which claim to be legitimate peer-reviewed journals, but do not provide the editorial services advertised.

Predatory journals are adept at mimicry and may appear at first to be a real peer-reviewed or scholarly journal site. Here are some ways to tell if you are looking at such a site:

• Publish journals which are improbable combinations of disciplines.
• Use spam to solicit papers.
• Publish papers which have already been published elsewhere.
• Website has false or very little contact information.
• Promise peer-review and publication "the next day" or some other unlikely time frame
• List members of the editorial board who may not actually be on the board
• Have 'sales' on the cost of publishing articles.
• Misspellings and/or bad grammar.
• Tout non-existant impact factors. (Impact factors are only calculated for journals indexed in the Citation Indexes, which is only a portion of all journals published.)

Other cautions:

These journals are picked up by Google Scholar, so be aware.

Hymenopus coronatus (Orchid Mantis)