Depredatory Journals: An Aberrant Phenomenon with Intellectual Ramifications
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37226/rcp.v6i1.6165Keywords:
depredatory journals, fraud, scientific publicationsAbstract
In this article, I discuss the phenomenon of depredatory journals, which do not possess the essential characteristics of academic and professional journals. For example, these journals do not use peer review, or the process of reviewing an article is entirely fraudulent, they are not associated with well-known and respected professional associations, and the editors and members of the editorial board are unknown people or invented. The main purpose of depredatory journals is to accept any submitted article to collect money in a matter of a few days. This type of journal has increased exponentially in the last decade, affecting psychiatry, neurosciences, and psychology. In this article, I present some of the more constant characteristics of these journals and empirical studies that illustrate their modus operandi. I highlight that this type of journal can be devastating to the scientific community potentially corrupt legitimate scientific knowledge.
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