Predatory publishers or journals are those that publish information purely for the goal of profit and not for the the intention of sharing information. Before you say publishers are businesses so of course they're in it for the profit, predatory publishers take it a step further and often publish with the intent to deceive readers and deprive authors of rights and more.

These journals:

• Are characterized by self-interest and their sole intent is to collect authors' fees for publishing an article, regardless of quality

  • often want copyright control of articles even if it is an open access article

  • fail to be transparent about fees or processes for publication (not always an indicator since this is aspirational rather than a requirement)

• Do not adhere to editorial and publishing best practices 

  • frequently skip or rush traditional peer review practices, though inadequate peer review is hard to assess

  • do not reject or retract articles

• Provide misinformation about their processes, reviewers, mission, impact factor, board members (difficult to trace), etc., 

• Aggressively solicit manuscripts from authors regardless of author's expertise or field of study

• Intend to deceive
  • Journals will have similar names or mimic the appearance of well-established/well-known journals or publishers. 

Check out the similarity between the Science Repository and ScienceDirect article in terms of appearance and layout

Definition based upon the sources below.

When selecting sources you are relying on them to be credible. Predatory publishers bring that credibility into question.

• Inadequate, rushed, or non-existent peer review means that misinformation or incorrect information is being published by these journals
  • simply saying that they peer review articles is easy, look at how quickly they go from submitted to accepted and that will tell you more about the quality of their review process
• Peer review ensures that not only is the information checked, but also the experimental design/data collection methods and conclusions reached are examined by peers in that field for validity
  • Asking for revisions or rejections due to issues with the article's finding is an important part of the process that ensures quality
• If the journal does not reject articles, it could mean that invalid articles are published anyway without revisions
• Not retracting or correcting articles means incorrect information continues to be available

To ensure that you have quality sources to create quality work, you need to be aware that these publishers/journals exist and be on the lookout for them.

Unfortunately, there is no one method or search to determine whether a journal or publisher is predatory. You may need to use more than one of the resources below as you investigate your sources.

Look outside the website for the publisher/journals to see what its reputation is. Examine the Wikipedia entry, if there is one, on the journal or publisher. Controversies over content and misinformation often get reported there. The value of Wikipedia should not be underestimated, its weakness of freedom to contribute is a strength in this instance. Publishers cannot remove the content that reveals issues with their content.

Examine databases that regularly index (or include content from journals) journals in that discipline. If they are not including content any longer, something is going on. Those listed below are examples of indexing databases to check.

If these services are no longer indexing those journals or have put a hold on them, there may be an issue.

You can also consult lists of publishers/journals considered to be or are suspected of being predatory. These lists are not exhaustive and may not be updated regularly or at all.

Look at how frequently articles are retracted from the Journal using

Investigate the publisher before submitting a publication or before using it as source through: