LibGuides: Predatory Journals: Warning Signs of Predatory Journals

Tactic	How to Recognize
Solicitation	Suspect journals aggressively solicit scholars to submit papers. The solicitation may come as spam or individual emails. Legitimate journals usually do not solicit authors but instead have the authors contact them. The journal agrees to publish your article for a fee before reviewing it.
Peer Review	A claim that a journal is peer reviewed is not enough. Almost all predatory journals claim to be peer reviewed. The stated time for peer review is extremely short. You are asked whom you would like to review your work.
Impact Factors	Be wary of journals that cite bogus impact factors, such as the GIF ( Global Impact Factor), Index Copernicus Value, Citefactor, or the UIF (Universal Impact Factor). Some may falsify legitimate impact factors. Impact Factors can be verified via Web of Science, Dimensions or Google.
Editorial Board	Members of the editorial board lack qualifications in the field. Different journals by the same publisher have the same editorial board. Predatory journals will sometimes solicit well-known scholars to join their boards in order to lend credibility to their journal but don't let them make decisions. (How you would make this discovery even with good due diligence is hard to imagine.) Listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission and not allowing academics to resign from editorial boards.
Indexing	The journal is not indexed in the major indexes in the field as well as general indexes, even though it might claim to be. Some journals falsely claim to be indexed by Thomson Reuters.
Watch lists	The journal is listed on Beall's List of Predatory Journals, Cabell's Predatory Journals list, or other watchlist.
Other Factors	The journal is difficult to locate in library catalogs, i.e. few major libraries subscribe to it. The scope is overly broad and/or does not fit well with your research. Publication frequency is irregular or not stated. May have the same or similar name to a legitimate journal. The former is characteristic of hijacked journals. The email address is often non-professional, e.g., (@yahoo.com, ao.com or @gmail.com).