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If you have published a scientific article, chances are that you are receiving emails from “journals” congratulating on your work and inviting you to publish with them. The more often you took the role as corresponding author of a publication, the more your inbox is likely to overflow with these invitations.
While you might be flattered at first, at a second glance you’ll notice that these invitations seem suspicious – they claim to be interdisciplinary, offer fast peer-review and quick publication times. In this Coffee Lecture we show you what you have to look out for in order to identify predatory publishers. While you can’t avoid those annoying emails entirely, maybe you can just have a little bit of fun with them.
Twitter: Predatory Journals @fake_journals
predatory-publishing.com
What to do with the suspicious invitations?
- Do not Unsubscribe from the mailing list. That might just give them a confirmation that your account is active and result in even more unwanted emails.
- Delete and ignore
- Set up a spam filter
- Tweet a screenshot of the email with the hashtag #predatorypublishingemails
- Submit something fake and see what happens!
References and Links
Rocha, A. & Smart, P. Social media and the rise of predatory journals: A case report. Medical Writing 30, 46–51 (2021)
Think. Check. Submit. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/
Anonymous. How to respond to an EMAIL from a predatory publisher? Predatory Journals and Conferences (2020).
Joke articles published in predatory journals:
Applebaum, E., Schlangemann, H. & Shelomi, M. Anthocyanin Receptor Expressions Across Tangela (Monjara tangela) Vines. J Plant Biochem Physiol 07, (2019).
Elm, U., Joy, N., House, G. & Schlomi, M. Cyllage City COVID-19 Outbreak Linked to Zubat Consumption. Am J Biomed Sci & Res 8, 140–142 (2020).
Stromberg, J. ‘Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List’ is an actual science paper accepted by a journal. Vox (2014).
