---
title: "Predatory publishing"
chunk: 3/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_publishing"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:28:22.490657+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The publisher is not a member of any recognized professional organisation committed to best publishing practices (like COPE or EASE)
The journal is not indexed in well-established electronic databases (like MEDLINE or Web of Science)
The publisher claims to be a "leading publisher" even though it just got started
The journal and the publisher are unfamiliar to you and all your colleagues
The papers of the journal are of poor research quality, and may not be academic at all (for instance allowing for obvious pseudo-science)
There are fundamental errors in the titles and abstracts, or frequent and repeated typographical or factual errors throughout the published papers
The journal website is not professional
The journal website does not present an editorial board or gives insufficient detail on names and affiliations
The journal website does not reveal the journal's editorial office location or uses an incorrect address
The publishing schedule is not clearly stated
The journal title claims a national affiliation that does not match its location (such as "American Journal of ..." while being located on another continent) or includes "International" in its title while having a single-country editorial board
The journal mimics another journal title or the website of said journal
The journal provides an impact factor in spite of the fact that the journal is new (which means that the impact cannot yet be calculated)
The journal claims an unrealistically high impact based on spurious alternative impact factors (such as 7 for a bioethics journal, which is far beyond the top notation)
The journal website posts non-related or non-academic advertisements
The publisher of the journal has released an overwhelmingly large suite of new journals at one occasion or during a very short period of time
The editor in chief of the journal is editor in chief also for other journals with widely different focus
The journal includes articles (very far) outside its stated scope
The journal sends you an unsolicited invitation to submit an article for publication, while making it blatantly clear that the editor has absolutely no idea about your field of expertise
Emails from the journal editor are written in poor language, include exaggerated flattering (everyone is a leading profile in the field), and make contradictory claims (such as "You have to respond within 48 h" while later on saying "You may submit your manuscript whenever you find convenient")
The journal charges a submission or handling fee, instead of a publication fee (which means that you have to pay even if the paper is not accepted for publication)
The types of submission/publication fees and what they amount to are not clearly stated on the journal's website
The journal gives unrealistic promises regarding the speed of the peer review process (hinting that the journal's peer review process is minimal or non-existent)—or boasts an equally unrealistic track-record
The journal does not describe copyright agreements clearly or demands the copyright of the paper while claiming to be an open-access journal
The journal displays no strategies for how to handle misconduct, conflicts of interest, or secure the archiving of articles when no longer in operation

=== Memon's criteria ===
Scholar Aamir Raoof Memon proposed the following criteria of predatory publishing:

The scope is too broad or inconsistent, e.g., it covers both biomedical and non-biomedical topics, irrespective of the title of the journal. They publish special issues on topics that are clearly outside the scope of the journal.
They accept all submitted papers and pretend to have a peer review process.
They are not affiliated with any reputable organization or university.
The published papers are of poor quality because they have never been peer-reviewed or edited. In most of the cases, they publish a large number of papers per issue.
They invite researchers to submit manuscripts with expertise in fields that are clearly outside the scope of the journal.
They state false or misleading information about their indexing service(s) and/or are indexed in irrelevant agencies or not indexed in relevant databases.
They falsify the information about their impact factors or similar metrics. Most of these journals claim to have an impact factor, despite being too new to have one.
They state false or misleading information about its editorial board.
They state false or misleading information about the costs involved in publishing with them or authors are surprised to discover hidden fees.
They are not monitored by or member of a regional or international organization.
They have no information about the strategy for handling misconduct (such as plagiarism, salami slicing, or a retraction policy).
The website is either not up-to-date or lacks important information about submission requirements and manuscript processing and reviewing.
The manuscripts are submitted through the email of the journal or directly on the journal's website.
They do not usually mention the contact details. There is also false or misleading information about the location of the journal.

=== Policies of leading scholar databases ===
Many scientific abstract and citation databases implemented policies to identify and combat predatory journals. For example, Scopus automatically flags a journal that is an outlier in two consecutive years according to any of three criteria comparing it with peer journals in its subject field

Substantially higher self-citation rate
Substantially lower number of citation
Substantially lower CiteScore
Web of Science implemented somewhat similar criteria, although they do not specify any quantitative metrics. Also, Web of Science (unlike Scopus) checks for excessive citations of the works authored by the journal board members.
As of summer 2024 SciFinder (and Chemical Abstract Service) do not have a publicly disclosed policy on predatory journals.