If you receive a solicitation to publish in a journal, or an invitation to present at a conference, there are a few things you can do to ensure that you are not being taken advantage of by a predatory publisher.
- Be wary.
- Is this a request from a journal or conference in your field of expertise?
- Does the requester seem more concerned about the fees you will pay than about the nature of your article or presentation?
- Are there any typos, grammatical errors, or weirdly formatted sentences?
- Ask questions.
- Is the requester making promises that are unusual, such as offers of rapid peer review or publication?
- Does the requester want you to put them in contact with your colleagues?
- Does the offer sound too good to be true?
- Do your homework.
- Is there full contact info (email, phone number, address)? Are all the points of contact in the same physical location?
- If there is a street address, look it up. Is it an empty lot, or in the middle of nowhere?
- If there is a Web site, look it up. Is it missing important information? Does it appear poorly designed?
- Are the members of the editorial board or the conference committee listed? Are they well known in the discipline? Do they appear to be related to each other?
- Consider guilty until proven innocent.
- Consult Beall's List, or any of the resources on the menu to the left.
- Ask your colleagues, particularly ones who have published or presented before, if they have any experience with the requester.
- Ask an Argonne librarian. You can submit a request to investigate a journal or conference at librarians@anl.gov.
