Publishing Journal Articles for Undergraduates

Learn how to identify relevant journals, avoid predatory publishers, and manage your citations

Predatory Publishing

These journals pollute the stream of published scholarship making it more difficult for scholars and librarians to distinguish between credible and non-credible content.

How to Spot a Predatory Journal

Exploitive, preying on authors
Asking for submission fees (in addition or instead of APC (article processing charge))
No peer review / non-rigorous peer review
Asking authors to relinquish copyright
Editorial board is small and/or consists of members without relevant qualification
Too many journals from a single publisher
Not following a regular publishing schedule
Too frequent
Excessive self-citation

8 Ways to Identify a Questionable Open Access Journal
by Chrissy Prater
Beyond Beall’s List: Better Understanding Predatory Publishers
Additional context for understanding open access publishing vs. predatory publishing and Beall's list.
Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers (Anonymous)
Controversial critical analysis of scholarly open access publishing originally created by Jeffrey Beall, an associate professor and librarian from the University of Colorado Denver. He stopped publishing his list in January 2017. This version of Beall's List was resurrected and maintained by an anonymous activist.