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Selecting Quality Journals and Conferences for Academic Scholarship: What are "Predatory" Journals?

"Predatory" or "questionable" journals have been causing problems for faculty who wish to publish or present in high-quality peer-reviewed journals. This guide is meant to provide help in understanding how to evaluate the quality and intention of journals

Problems with "Predatory Journals"

This article by Monica Berger (NYCTech, CUNY) was presented at the Association of College & Research Libraries Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, March 22 - 25, 2017. It is a good place to start understanding more about questionable academic publishing. [Conference paper].

Gina Kolata's New York TImes article was published on Oct. 30, 2017. It includes the issue of publishing in questionable journals at CUNY as well as other stories of problems with "predatory journals," Very interesting!

Another, earlier article by Gina Kolata (Mar. 22, 2017) describes a sting operation to uncover the unethical practices of "predatory journals." Amazing!

Take a look at this amusing but cautionary article. Here's an excerpt: “In the ‘Star Trek’ universe, the fantastic speed of warp 10 has remained annoyingly out of reach. However, a recent paper in an open-access journal describes an experiment that attempted to break that boundary. The fact that the ‘experiment’ described in the paper wasn't conducted in a real-world laboratory, but in an episode of the sci-fi TV series "Star Trek: Voyager," reveals just how easy it is to publish fake science in some so-called "predatory journals." Fake Science Paper about 'Star Trek' an Warp 10 was Accepted by 'Predatory Journals'