Evaluating Journals: Think.Check.Submit
After understanding the types of publishing models that are available, you also need to choose which journal to submit your article to.
Visit each of the tabs above to learn more about Predatory Journals, Predatory Conferences and Impact Factor.
Think.Check.Submit provides a checklist so that authors can submit their articles to relevant and credible journals and avoid deceptive publishers.
View the brief video below to learn more about the checklist. (For best results, watch on YouTube)
Evaluating Journals: Avoiding Predatory Journals:
When searching for relevant journals to submit your article to, you have to be aware of unethical or predatory journals.
Predatory journals practice deceptive publishing practices without providing standard editorial and publishing services that are practiced by legitimate scholarly journals. They usually charge exorbitant fees to authors without providing quality (if any) peer-review.
Because they identify themselves as open access journals, it can be difficult for new and inexperienced authors to identify them; however, many predatory journals share similar characteristics.
Predatory vs. Legitimate Journals: Can You Tell the Difference?
Below is a brief video that provides some helpful tips for identifying a predatory journal. (For best results watch on YouTube)
Source:Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library
Shamseer, L., Moher, D., Maduekwe, O., Turner, L., Barbour, V., Burch, R., Clark, J., Galipeau, J., Roberts, J., & Shea, B. J. (2017). Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC Medicine, 15, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0785-9
Badke, W. (2023). Predators in Our Midst. Computers in Libraries, 43(8), 43–44.
Here are comparisons of Real and Predatory Journals:
Real Journal: The Journal of Infectious Diseases – Published by Oxford
Predatory Journal: Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medicine – Published by OMICS, redirects to Hilaris website which appears to be a shell/subsidiary of OMICS and also identified as a questionable publisher
Real Journal: Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery – Published by the American Orthopaedic Association since 1889.
Predatory Journal: Annals of Bone and Joint Surgery – Remedy Publications
Real Journal: BMC Cell Biology – Published by BioMed Central
Predatory Journal: Cell Biology – Science Publishing Group (Science PG)
Used with permission from:
Michelle Kraft, MLS, AHIP, FMLA
Director, Cleveland Clinic Libraries
Predatory Conferences:
As an author, you might also want to submit your work to a conference. Just as in publishing, you need to be aware of predatory conferences. Predatory conferences follow the same practices as predatory publishers and can usually be identified using the same criteria:
Go to Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library guide for more tips on how to identify predatory conferences.
Impact Factor:
The impact factor is a metric that calculates the average that an article within a journal is cited within a specific time frame out of all citable articles published during that time.
There are multiple types of impact factors:
There is some controversy about the usefulness of impact factor. Read the article about the uses and misuses of impact factor:
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