Predatory Journals and Conferences Guide

Invitation & Call for Papers

Call for papers seem to arrive daily in your inbox, leaving it up to you to decide whether they are from a reliable or a predatory journal. It’s often pretty clear that the invitations are from predatory journals: they invite you to journals outside of your field, use ridiculously supercilious language, and send their messages from free email providers like Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail.

Established journals can also send out call for papers, but they usually do so from e-mail addresses clearly affiliated with the journal in question. They also use mailing lists that you have chosen to subscribe to instead of contacting you directly at the e-mail address listed on your university’s webpages.

Invitations to publish can come from journals of varying quality, but is often spam from predatory journals. You may receive targeted mail that references your previous publications. This is something that legitimate journals do as well, which can make it difficult to tell who the sender is. There are many ways of telling what kind of journal has sent the invitation. Even though it can be flattering to hear that you have been chosen, and that your research is exactly what the journal is looking to publish you should unfortunately be careful with those kind of invitations.

Questions to check if you are being targetted by a predatory publisher

• Have you gotten the same e-mail multiple times?
  Predatory publishers like to spam you, hoping to make you give in and submit your manuscript.

• Does the journal's name make sense?
  Predator journals often have very broad names to cover as many areas of research as possible, whereas legitimate journals tend to be very specific. International Journal of Advanced Research and International Journal of Development Research are two examples of predatory journal titles.

• Does the journal's scope seem like a good fit for your research?
  Spam from predatory publishers often invite you to publish outside of your field of expertise. A typical sign that you have received spam from a predatory publisher is that your colleagues receive the same invitation as you do, even though you are active in different fields. 

• Language: generic or overly familiar?
  If a call for papers is written in a very generic way it can be a sign that it is spam from a predatory journal. On the other hand, predatory journals can go to extremes in the other direction, and send you emails written in such familiar language that it feels very unprofessional. 

• Poorly written invitations?
  If the email you get is poorly written, with typos or grammatical errors you can be fairly certain it doesn't come from a legitimate journal. 

• Does the invite reference an impact factor?
  If so, try and find out if it is actually Clarivate Analytic's trademarked Journal Impact Factor, or something less reliable. Predatory publishers like to use nonsense indicators like "Science Central Score" and "SJIFfactor". Read more about impact factors and predatory publishers here.

• Is the e-mail signed by a named person?
  If the call for papers is unsigned, or signed by e.g. "The Editor" that is a sign that the sender isn't legitimate. You can also find examples of spam from predatory publishers where the signature is written in different colors and styles. This is another sign that the sender is unprofessional.

• Are there clear contact details?
  Make sure that the sender address matches the e-mail given in the contact information. If they are different it could be a sign that something isn't right. The same thing goes for call for papers sent from generic e-mail providers like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Legitimate journals have their own e-mail domains, or editors that use their university affiliated addresses to contact authors.

Below you can find example call for papers. There are issues with each of them that makes it possible the sender is a predatory journal. It's also possible that the journal is legitimate, but of poor quality. Either way it is never a good idea to publish in dubious journals.