Don't fall prey to predatory journals

Physician-researchers, especially those early in their careers, may see an out-of-the-blue solicitation from a journal as a terrific opportunity to boost their CV. But take a closer look: That email asking you to submit your paper or join an editorial board may be coming from a predatory journal.

“Predatory journals are entities that are intentionally misrepresenting themselves,” said Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH, FACP. “Like the scammers who send misleading texts people sometimes get on their smartphones, the scam in this case is coming from people pretending to be a scholarly journal.”

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) already warns researchers about the dangers of predatory journals, but with the numbers growing—one 2021 estimate puts the total at around 15,000—it felt that stronger action was needed. In an editorial recently published in several scholarly journals, including Annals of Internal Medicine, the ICMJE outlined further recommended steps for authors, institutions and funders, and journal editors and publishers, as well as issuing a call to action.

“Predatory journals have developed strategies to profit by taking advantage of a climate that nurtures the growth of open access, author-pays publication models,” the ICMJE wrote. “It is worrisome that despite the awareness of these entities for many years, academicians still fall prey to them. Protecting the scientific community and the public from predatory journals requires action by all stakeholders.”

Dr. Wee, who is Senior Deputy Editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, secretary for the ICMJE, and the editorial's corresponding author, recently discussed predatory journals with I.M. Matters.

Q: How do predatory journals usually operate?

A: Predatory journals are motivated by financial gain, so they're focused on quantity rather than the quality of what they publish. They don't follow publishing practices of legitimate scholarly journals. Many don't conduct scientific peer review and promise quick turnarounds. They are intentionally misleading—using names that are very similar to those of better-known and higher-quality scholarly journals, and listing editors or editorial board members who are well known in the field without their consent.

Scholarly journals typically meet certain standards in publishing. A lot of people don't realize that, in addition to publishing articles and conducting peer review, scholarly journals are also responsible for archiving articles so that they are searchable. They are responsible for making sure that conflicts of interest are disclosed and that there are no conflicts of interest that might preclude publication of an article. A scholarly journal needs to have a way to make and publicize corrections, including some process for retraction.

Many predatory journals don't meet these standards. In addition, they charge fees for publication, and while this isn't inappropriate in and of itself, their fees tend to be exorbitant. In some instances, they may not publish your article after collecting payment. Lastly, they may not adhere to copyright and licensing policy.

Q: Why might early career physicians be vulnerable to predatory journals?

A: When you're early in your career, you may not have enough experience or be in the field long enough to tell the difference between a smaller legitimate journal and a predatory one. Early career physicians may also be easier prey because they are very pressured to publish in a timely way in order to get a good fellowship or to obtain a desired position. This pressure and overly optimistic thinking may prevent them from seeing the warning signs.

It is flattering when a predatory journal reaches out to early career authors, but they should consider whether the solicitation makes sense, given their body of work so far. A lot of these emails are templated form letters that are essentially like spam and are sent to probably thousands of authors. A typical email might say something along the lines of, “We saw that you published a paper on the topic of such and such. We would love for you to be on our editorial board for this journal,” but usually these entities don't have the expertise to realize that the paper an author published is not at all related to the opportunity being offered.

Q: Does a physician have any recourse if they realize after submission that they are dealing with a predatory journal?

A: An author can withdraw a submitted manuscript from a journal before publication. The ICMJE recently updated their recommendations to make clear that, even if you don't get a confirmation from the journal, if you've made a good-faith effort to withdraw your manuscript by emailing the journal or following whatever process the journal recommends, then you can consider your manuscript withdrawn and submit the paper to another journal. ICMJE updated this guidance because we recognize that some predatory journals might intentionally not respond to requests for withdrawal. One important tip is to never give out any financial information before a manuscript is accepted, because if you've paid up front and now you're withdrawing the paper, you probably won't get a refund.

Q: Can listing a predatory journal on a CV harm a physician's reputation?

A: It can, especially if it's a repeated occurrence. If you did it once, early in your career, most would assume it was an early career mistake. But there may be authors who see publishing in predatory journals as an easy way to pad their CV. Publishing predominantly in low-quality or predatory journals may in turn suggest the authors' work is similarly of low quality or credibility. One of our messages to promotion committees is to do a better job at disincentivizing this behavior and consider the quality of the articles and where they are published and not just the quantity of published articles. Predatory journals would not be as successful if authors were more cautious about where they publish and less likely to succumb to predatory strategies.

There are lots of legitimate open-access author-pay journals that adhere to the publishing standards that I mentioned previously, including conducting peer review; many are indexed and make some effort at dissemination. One of the criticisms of traditional scholarly journals is that the bar can be high, particularly for very preliminary research or very novel ideas that might challenge traditional ways of thinking. In addition to legitimate open-access journals, preprints are another option to get more preliminary or speculative research published without having to pay a lot of money. Of course, preprints have their negatives, including lack of peer review, but at least there is transparency about the preliminary nature of preprint articles and your work is available for feedback from the scientific community. From my perspective, this would be preferable to submitting to a predatory journal.

Q: How can authors verify that a journal they're submitting to is legitimate?

A: The best resource to use is the website thinkchecksubmit.org, which lists questions you should think about as you consider submitting to a journal. In addition, think about whether you've heard of the journal. Look at the articles that they publish. Is what they are claiming about themselves accurate? If they claim a particular impact factor, there are ways to verify that. If they say they're indexed, verify that they are. It's also a good idea to look at the journal's URL to see if it's legitimate. Search the journal after you get a solicitation; verify that the contact information and URL match what you received. Then see whether and what they publish, how many issues they publish, and verify some of their claims.

While none of this is failsafe, because unfortunately even predatory journals do occasionally fall through the cracks and get indexed, if a journal passes multi-checks, it provides some reassurance of its legitimacy. We also suggest that you talk to librarians, because in their roles, they are often familiar with the long list of journals their institutions subscribe to in addition to those they might have considered but didn't subscribe to. If the journal you're considering isn't on that list, you have to ask yourself whether your work will reach the right audience if access to the journal is very limited. Publishing in a predatory journal that no one reads is an important opportunity cost, particularly if you've devoted a lot of time to conducting the study and you are now precluded from publishing your results elsewhere.