Firstly, as answered by Rodney Duffett Most of the fake journals are there to make money per page. However, all the paid journals like RCS advances and PLoS one are not predatory because they charge for open access; are peer-reviewed and indexed journals. So, the simple way to find if the predatory journal or not is to check its indexing (web of science or Scopus), publisher (like Springer, Elsevier, and so on), and type/quality of the paper published. You can find the number of journals to publish preliminary data or you can say as rubbish data with 5-6 logos in the article and write more than 3 impact factors on their website (can be easily found on google) which are predatory. However, there are newly launched journals that are not indexed in web of science and Scopus but are peer-reviewed (published by any reputed publisher like Springer and web of science) and cannot be considered as predatory journals like Clinical Phytoscience.
Secondly, I use the following tricks to identify fake research
- Improper implementation of the statistics (like someone uses unpaired t-test to analyze the data from the same sample)
- Digitalized numbers of abstract, Tables/Figures, and main text do not match
- Excessive data transformation without relevant justification
- Improper selection of dose, a strain of animals (like you can find multiple papers to screen multiple herbal medicines in olanzapine-induced obesity using Wistar male rats. However, literature reflects olanzapine-induced obesity is more prone in Sprague Dawley female rats), Experimental protocol (you can track it if the results of the particular protocol are improper (suppose to evaluate "X" biomarker there are two protocols "A" and "B" written by authors "C" and "D" respectively. Protocol "A" measures "X" with unit mM/microgram/Hr and "D" measures "A" with microgram. Now if some smart fellow measures biomarker "X" writing the text as "X was measured as explained by C" and gives the unit microgram providing the digital numbers of A or B" probably this experiment has not been performed. Maybe the smart fellow got confused while compiling the data from two or three published articles.
- Most important is, during the peer review process, if the author fails or attempts to twist your query; consider it as a fake research
- Lastly. improper presentation of the data ( I am not talking about the English language as "English language is to be improved" that many reviewers add on their comment box as a sweet to authors); I am talking about the graphical or tabular presentation. A good researcher always tries to process the data. If a researcher has really performed a work, he/she will try his/her best to present data in an understandable way. However, the author can improve the presentation in revision (if the work was genuine) which needs to be reconsidered.
Predatory journals usually have the following characteristics: aim to make money via page fees; make phoney claims (e.g. indexing and impact factors); and publish poor quality papers due to little or no peer-reviewing and editing. Few (if any) manuscript submissions are rejected, and a very fast acceptance and publication process is the standard operational procedure among most predatory journals. The above content was taken from from my paper, “Writing for Publication for Students and University Staff”, which is available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342549330_Writing_for_Publication_for_Students_and_University_Staff
Key indicators of the legitimacy of newly launched OA journals are ? or there are others :
-Entry in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – journals must meet strict criteria to qualify
-Publisher’s membership of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) – members are bound by a code of conduct based on standard publishing practices and transparency
-Publisher’s membership of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices
-Publisher’s membership of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical -Publishers (STM) – membership demonstrates commitment to widely accepted publishing practices
-Named editor and editorial board – recognised experts in their field who include their editorial commitment on their own research profiles
-Full contact details (email, postal address, working telephone number)
Firstly, as answered by Rodney Duffett Most of the fake journals are there to make money per page. However, all the paid journals like RCS advances and PLoS one are not predatory because they charge for open access; are peer-reviewed and indexed journals. So, the simple way to find if the predatory journal or not is to check its indexing (web of science or Scopus), publisher (like Springer, Elsevier, and so on), and type/quality of the paper published. You can find the number of journals to publish preliminary data or you can say as rubbish data with 5-6 logos in the article and write more than 3 impact factors on their website (can be easily found on google) which are predatory. However, there are newly launched journals that are not indexed in web of science and Scopus but are peer-reviewed (published by any reputed publisher like Springer and web of science) and cannot be considered as predatory journals like Clinical Phytoscience.
Secondly, I use the following tricks to identify fake research
- Improper implementation of the statistics (like someone uses unpaired t-test to analyze the data from the same sample)
- Digitalized numbers of abstract, Tables/Figures, and main text do not match
- Excessive data transformation without relevant justification
- Improper selection of dose, a strain of animals (like you can find multiple papers to screen multiple herbal medicines in olanzapine-induced obesity using Wistar male rats. However, literature reflects olanzapine-induced obesity is more prone in Sprague Dawley female rats), Experimental protocol (you can track it if the results of the particular protocol are improper (suppose to evaluate "X" biomarker there are two protocols "A" and "B" written by authors "C" and "D" respectively. Protocol "A" measures "X" with unit mM/microgram/Hr and "D" measures "A" with microgram. Now if some smart fellow measures biomarker "X" writing the text as "X was measured as explained by C" and gives the unit microgram providing the digital numbers of A or B" probably this experiment has not been performed. Maybe the smart fellow got confused while compiling the data from two or three published articles.
- Most important is, during the peer review process, if the author fails or attempts to twist your query; consider it as a fake research
- Lastly. improper presentation of the data ( I am not talking about the English language as "English language is to be improved" that many reviewers add on their comment box as a sweet to authors); I am talking about the graphical or tabular presentation. A good researcher always tries to process the data. If a researcher has really performed a work, he/she will try his/her best to present data in an understandable way. However, the author can improve the presentation in revision (if the work was genuine) which needs to be reconsidered.
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