Resource of the Week #189: An Infographic on Avoiding Predatory Publishers

Hello again. Earlier Resources of the Week have included resources for helping to avoid predatory publishers. These “publishers” demand publication fees from authors but do not publish valid journals—or do not publish journals at all.

New resources in this regard include a colorful infographic titled “Phony vs Legit”. This infographic appears in the current issue of FrontMatter, a newsletter from the company Allen Press. One can click on the infographic to enlarge the text.

The left side of the poster is titled “Phony” and has the word “Stop”. It lists indications that a journal may not be real or valid—and thus that authors probably should avoid submitting manuscripts to it.

The right side of the poster is titled “Legit” (short for “Legitimate”) and has the word “Go”. It lists indications that a journal is likely to be real and valid—and thus that authors can rightly consider submitting manuscripts to it.

Among the several listed indicators that a journal is likely to be legitimate are

• thorough contact information
• a complete, easy-to-find list of issues and articles
• clear, accurate, helpful text and navigation

For some other resources on this topic, please see our earlier posts “An Aid for Identifying Questionable Journals” and “Some Guidance on Avoiding ‘Fake Journals’”.

Until the next post—

Barbara