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Predatory Publishing: Red Flags & Lists

Information and resources about predatory journals, predatory conferences, and open access publishing.

Phony vs. Legit

Beall's List & Articles by Beall

Jeffrey Beall in 2005 [CC BY 2.0]

Warning Signs / Red Flags

The following is a list of features that are typical of a predatory publisher.  The list comes from a personal communication on the MEDLIB-L listserv on behalf of Lara Lasner-Frater, Electronic Resources Librarian, Sirota Memory Library - Touro Harlem (2019, June 18):

  • Webpages contain bogus journals
  • Images appear distorted or fuzzy
  • No ISSN
  • Vague or incomplete contact information
  • Promise of rapid publication
  • Unclear or deceptive publishing fees and copyright policies
  • Fake names are listed on the editorial staff. Names of prominent scholars are included as editors without the knowledge or consent of these individuals
  • Published articles are plagiarized, completely fake, are scientifically unsound, or low quality
  • Websites contain many grammatical, spelling and formatting errors

The document below includes even more examples.

Other Questionable Lists

Blogs to Follow

Both are written by David H. Kaye, Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at Penn State.