Scientific journals are supposed to publish accurate, honest, peer-reviewed articles, providing sources for scientists to find important information for their own research. There are many legitimate journals, both in print and online, that do provide such credible articles. These journals may charge a fee for publication, but they do so to cover the cost of publication and maintenance, including revision, proofreading, plagiarism check, and peer review. However, recently a few news articles have exposed journals that published fake, and even plagiarized papers in the past, leading many people to wonder why a journal would do so.
Open Access Journals
The internet has become an easy environment for publishing scientific research, especially with the rise of open access journals. Many open access, digital journals are legitimate, following a business model similar to that of their print peers focusing on publishing accurate research beneficial to the scientific community. However, predatory journals that only care about profit and not the validity of research also exist online. It is these profit-focused predatory journals that have been found to publish fake research papers.
Exposing Predatory Journals
In one notable report on such journals, a reporter from the Ottawa Citizen drafted a paper that not only had huge percentage of plagiarism in research but also riddled with inaccuracies, incorrect grammar, and incoherent language to see if he could still get it published by using the best plagiarism checker. He found eight journals willing to publish his fake scientific paper for a fee. Other similar studies into these false journals have also discovered that they are willing to accept flawed and inaccurate papers.
In it for the Money
These false journals do not have any significant review process in place because they do not actually care about what they publish. They exist only to make a profit. They pose as legitimate journals and even buy fake impact factors to make them appear legitimate. However, unlike a reputed journal, they do not review or edit the copy.
There are hundreds of such predatory journals that are willing to publish fake research, and they continue to grow in number. For researchers, it important to publish in authentic high-quality journals. Unfortunately, it is largely up to researchers and review boards to identify which of these journals are real. There are online lists naming fake journals, but new journals are constantly being established, and it takes time to add new journals to these lists. Researchers need to be careful when submitting their work to journals that do not have national recognition in their fields.
The Danger of Publishing in a Predatory Journal
Publishing research is an important part of a scientist’s career. It can be difficult to be published in high impact factor journals, making some scientists search for journals with easier publishing requirements. However, researchers need to be aware of the possibility of scams. Publishing in these fake journals will damage an individual’s career. If the research is sound and the paper is accurate, then there is always the possibility of finding a legitimate journal to publish, even if it is time-consuming. It is important for researchers to use specific sites to avoid plagiarism, leverage sophisticated plagiarism detection tools and services and do a journal background check to preserve their academic integrity.
