How to Protect the Credibility of Articles Published in Predatory Journals
Faculty of Arts and Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Academic Editor: Nicole Palmer
Publications 2021, 9(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010004
Received: 30 October 2020
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Revised: 23 December 2020
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Accepted: 20 January 2021
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Published: 24 January 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Publication Ethics and Research Integrity)
Predatory journals often prey on innocent researchers who are unaware of the threat they pose. This paper discusses what researchers can do if they unintentionally publish a paper in a predatory journal, including measures to take before submission, during peer review, and after the journal has accepted a manuscript. The specific recommendations discussed are pre-registration, pre-submission peer-review, open peer-review, topping up reviewers, post-publication peer review, open recommendation, and treatment as unrefereed. These measures may help to ensure the credibility of the article, even if it is published in a predatory journal. The present article suggests that an open and multi-layered assessment of research content enhances the credibility of all research articles, even those published in non-predatory journals. If applied consistently by researchers in various fields, the suggested measures may enhance reproducibility and promote the advancement of science.
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Keywords:
publication bias; predatory journals/publishing; research personnel; quality control; periodicals; peer review; research; inexperienced researchers; ethical publishing
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
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Externally hosted supplementary file 1
Doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/KPS75
Link: https://osf.io/kps75/
Description: Details regarding the pre-submission and post-publication peer review of this paper can be found in the Supplementary Files.
MDPI and ACS Style
Yamada, Y. How to Protect the Credibility of Articles Published in Predatory Journals. Publications 2021, 9, 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010004
AMA Style
Yamada Y. How to Protect the Credibility of Articles Published in Predatory Journals. Publications. 2021; 9(1):4. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010004
Chicago/Turabian StyleYamada, Yuki. 2021. "How to Protect the Credibility of Articles Published in Predatory Journals" Publications 9, no. 1: 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010004
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