Careful, they are watching you. Predatory publishers are ceaseless looking for their next victim -and this could be you-. How to avoid falling into their trap? Can you spot all the red flags in the following email?:
Greetings Margarita Espona-Fiedler,
We have genuinely emailed you quite a lot of times but received no response, so we’d like to try once more as courtesy.
The most recent issue (New Edition) is missing one article. Could you please aid us by putting forward an article to this edition of the Archives of Cancer Science and Therapy (ISSN: 2766-273X) before April 07, 2024?
Please send in a research paper, review paper, mini-review, or case study. We believe that a two-page paper will not be too time-consuming for someone of your calibre if you have short notice.
We are confident that you will always be available to help us.
Our Sincere Request: Please acknowledge this invitation within 24 hours |Reply Us|.
Regards,
Castellon Ingrid, Journal Operations Liaison
If these emails get annoying, please feel free to unsubscribe.
This is a real email I got myself few months ago. Not the first and surely not the last of a long list of spam emails I got this year. Predatory journals are a real threat within academia. They are fraudulent and use exploitative tactics to take profit from scholarly research. Do not reply these emails and do not click in any of their links -not even to unsubscribe-; instead, report the case to the IT service via: abuse@umu.se.
This is how predatory publishers act:
- They usually contact by sending spam emails.
- They request payment for publishing in advance.
- They accept articles quickly with little or no peer review.
- They have no true editorial board or are listing academics as members of editorial boards without their permission.
- They are using standard identifiers (i.e. ISSN and DOI) and/or similar names of more established journals.
Make sure you publish your research in a reputable journal. In case of doubt, ask and look for support. You can find more information about scholarly publishing at: https://www.umu.se/en/library/publish/scholarly-publishing/
