No Laughing Matter: Proliferation of Predatory Journals

Well, we very badly run in short, of articles to release the Volume 4 Issue 3 of (name of journal withheld)…So now I was pushed by my Editorial team to publish a minimum number of articles to the sphere of this issue…I hope you will definitely help me out in this instigate.

In support of the rejoicing release of New Issue, we need one article…We desire to receive your manuscript. We are calculating seconds to receive your submission. Hope you will not disappoint us.

We are in the need of articles for fruitful release of Upcoming Edition…Anticipate for your promising response.

Greetings from the open access journal of (name withheld)…It would be great full to submit by November 5, 2019 if your manuscript is ready kindly submit at this movement.

I hope everything is groovy at you! This is a righteous reminder to request your quiescent contribution of innovative article towards our (name of journal withheld)…We request you to let us know your treasured response and an update on the feasible date of submission.

The above verbatim quotations are taken from my large collection of e-mailed invitations from predatory journals to submit a manuscript or become a reviewer. I have even been invited to join the editorial board of a journal focused on fluid dynamics, about which I have zero expertise. In the salutations of the e-mails, my name is seldom spelled correctly (although Sandra Thomas would seem to be simple enough). One salutation was “Dear solemn scientist.” Although the wording and grammar in these desperate pleas for manuscripts are laughable, the proliferation of predatory journals is no laughing matter.

I may chuckle at being asked to “annunciate my imminent work” (another recent solicitation), but early career scholars could be taken in by flattering language and names of journals that sound legitimate.

If the term “predatory journal” is new to you, let me provide a quick overview of a scary phenomenon plaguing scientific publishing in all disciplines. Escalating rapidly in the last decade, in concert with the trend of open access journals, publishers based in countries such as India, Pakistan, and China have developed thousands of journals with respectable-sounding names—journals that were founded only to make money from large “processing fees” that authors must pay (often $2,000–5,000). Predatory journals made 75 million dollars in 2015 from these author processing fees (Greco, 2016), and a more recent estimate of 10.5 billion dollars per year has been made (Wilkinson, Russell, Bennett, Cheng, & Carroll, 2019). These astounding profits provide a strong incentive for the unscrupulous publishers to continue bombarding scholars with solicitations for manuscripts in e-mails such as those I quoted above. The promise of prompt publication can be tempting for tenure-track university faculty who need more pubs listed on their CVs to meet criteria for tenure and promotion. Peer review of manuscripts is faster than reputable journals because it is inadequate (or entirely absent), allowing shoddy science to be published and ultimately make its way into databases. Younger scholars may not notice that a predatory journal’s editorial board does not include any familiar names. Predatory publishers have been known to list unqualified, fictitious, or deceased people on their editorial boards (Sorokowski, Kulczycki, Sorokowska, & Pisanski, 2017).

The scientific community is alarmed and trying to educate aspiring authors. As noted in a 2019 article in Nature, more than 90 checklists have been developed for authors to use to detect predatory journals, and 38 research papers have been written about the problem (Grudniewicz et al. 2019). The American Medical Writers Association, European Medical Writers Association, and International Society for Medical Publication Professionals have issued a joint position statement emphasizing that “authors should not purposely choose to submit manuscripts to predatory journals to augment their own record of publication” and encouraging authors to “carry out due diligence by examining the reputation of the publications to which they submit, and send their work only to those journals that provide proper peer review and that genuinely seek to contribute to the scientific literature” (Grudniewicz et al. 2019, pp. 1657–1658).

Do predatory journals exist in nursing? Oermann et al. (2016) identified 140 predatory open access nursing journals, most initiated within the past 1–2 years before the study was conducted. In a subsequent evaluation of the quality of articles published in these journals, Oermann et al. (2018) judged 96% of the articles to be poor or average quality, and only half had content that was useful to nurses. What are the consequences of further dissemination of this poor quality work? In her newest paper, Oermann et al. (2019) looked for citations of articles that had been published in known predatory nursing journals, finding that such articles are being included in databases such as Scopus. A total of 814 citations of articles from predatory journals were found in legitimate nonpredatory journals—confirming fears that poor quality work is likely to be included in future systematic reviews, ultimately causing deterioration in nursing science (and possibly harm to vulnerable patients).

The International Academy of Nurse Editors, of which I am a participant, has been active in combating the scourge of predatory publishing and maintains a list of credible journals on its website (nursingeditors.com/journals-directory). Please assist in the efforts being made by legitimate publishers and scientific societies. Tell your colleagues and students about “Think, Check, Submit” (https://thinkchecksubmit.org). Always be suspicious if high fees are required for review or publication of your manuscript. Most scholarly journals (such as this one) charge no fees for review, processing, or publication. Scan the names of editors and editorial board members listed on the masthead of the journal, looking for familiar names of respected faculty and clinicians. If you are a graduate student, consult your faculty mentors if you have suspicions about an e-mail invitation.

Contact me personally if I can be of assistance: [email protected].