Understanding peer-review: Predatory journals

Recognizing a predatory journal is not always an easy task, but there are some strategies you can use to spot a publication of dubious quality.

• Errors and inconsistencies: exam the journal website and watch for typos, grammar, quality of images, and editing. Is that consistent throughout the entire publication?


• Indexing: predatory journals will claim to be indexed by recognized academic databases. Check the publication list in library databases to confirm if the journal is in fact indexed where it claims to be. An important note: Google Scholar is not a formal journal indexing tool. Any journal claiming to be indexing by Google Scholar needs to be examined carefully.


• Google Scholar and other search engines: while it is possible to find good content on Google Scholar and other search engines, journals appearing in those platforms are not curated for quality. Predatory journals explore this fact and will employ certain techniques to make sure they appear in search results.


• Journal content: since the intent of predatory journals is to collect money from authors and not publish high quality research, these publications do not really consider the content of the article they are publishing. Check articles in the journal: do topics fit within the scope of the journal? What is the length of the articles? How is the use of citations and references? Are there too many self-citations or citations to studies published in the same journal?


• Editorial board: many predatory journals have a fake editorial board, often stealing the profiles of real scholars who have nothing to do with the publication. Double-check the journal editors: what can you find out about them? Try to trace academic profiles, LinkedIn resumes, and other publications they are involved with to confirm whether they are really responsible for editing the journal in question.


• Date of submission, revisions, and date of acceptance: peer-review is a complex process and it is common to see articles published several months after its initial submission. If you spot an article that was accepted only a few weeks after its submission, mark that as a potential red flag, particularly if the article doesn't specify any revisions.

Vanity press is a type of publishing, where authors pay to have their work published; either in money or – more often – in the author’s publication rights. During the publication process, no peer-review is promised by the publisher and no quality control is done. (Beall's List, n.d.)

There is ongoing debate whether the publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) is predatory or not. While several journals published by MDPI have high impact factors and are indexed as reputable publications, several articles in MDPI journals have been retracted due to errors often resulting from poor peer-review quality and other commercial malpractices.

While these issues don't necessarily mean all MDPI journals are bad, it is good to be cautious. Use the guidance found on this page and also our several evaluation frameworks to assess content quality of the articles you decide to use.

More information regarding MDPI issues can be found from the sources below:

Christos, P. (2023, September 18). Guest post: Reputation and publication volume at MDPI and Frontiers. The Scholarly Kitchen. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/09/18/guest-post-reputation-and-publication-volume-at-mdpi-and-frontiers-the-1b-question/

Oviedo-Garcia, M. A. (2021). Journal citation reports and the definition of a predatory journal: The case of the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). Research Evaluation, 30(3), 405-419a. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvab020

Wikipedia. (n.d). MDPI. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI#Evaluation_and_controversies