Free tool, journals
Predatory journal checker
Twelve questions that show a journal’s warning signs.
This checker asks twelve questions about a journal and then gives a risk level, with the reason for every warning sign you report. The level will be low, check further or high.
Many scholars are getting these journal mails late on a Friday evening. It praises a paper you have not even finished. Then it promises publication in fifteen days and wants the fee along with acceptance letter. You are tired, the pre-submission seminar is three months away, and you think maybe this will solve the publication problem. Before replying, spend ten minutes here once.
Not sure the answer fits your study? WhatsApp us or call, and we’ll look at it with you.
How the tool works
We took the twelve questions from two sources. Some of them follow the checks in Think. Check. Submit. That initiative is backed by publishers and library groups to help authors judge a journal. For the remaining questions we looked at what makes Scopus start re-evaluating a title. A sudden jump in papers per issue is one such pattern.
The points are not same for all the questions. If you say “yes” to the first question, about the web address, that alone counts 3 points. We gave it more weight because hijacked journals mostly do this trick. The title will be the same and the ISSN also, but the website is a different one. A “yes” on quick acceptance, payment before acceptance or a fake impact factor counts 2 points each. Each of the remaining eight questions counts 1 point.
- High risk is shown straight away for a “yes” on the web address question. You will also get it once your total touches 4 points.
- Check further comes with 2 or 3 points. It also comes when three or more of your answers are “Don’t know”.
- Low risk you will see if your answers give 0 or 1 point and you have ticked “Don’t know” for less than three questions.
Say the mail you got talks of a decision in 15 days, and they want money sent with the acceptance letter itself. Add 2 and 2 and you have 4 points already. The checker will show high risk for that journal, never mind how neat the rest of their website is. The result show each warning sign you reported, with one line on why that sign matters. Wherever you ticked “Don’t know”, the checker puts those questions in a separate list for you to find out later.
The result will not come till all twelve questions are answered. You can use “Don’t know” freely, it is a fair answer. Just remember you have to go back and find those answers before sending any paper. After that, check the ISSN in our journal checker. For the full explanation of each sign, read our guide to predatory journal warning signs.
Questions scholars ask
The journal is in Scopus. Can it still be a problem?
Yes, it can. Scopus re-evaluates titles when concerns are raised, and every year some titles get discontinued. Sometimes the coverage stops but the journal’s website keeps on saying it is in Scopus. So search the journal in Scopus Sources and look at the coverage years also.
How do I spot a hijacked journal?
First find the journal in the ISSN Portal or in the Master Journal List. Note down the web address given in that official record. Now compare it with the address of the site that mailed you, letter by letter. Many times a clone changes one word in the domain, or adds a hyphen somewhere.
What counts as a fake impact factor?
The Journal Impact Factor is issued by Clarivate only, and only for the journals it covers in Web of Science. If the site shows a “Global Impact Factor”, a “Universal Impact Factor” or a similar badge, that is a separate commercial number and you should tick “yes”. Also check the Master Journal List to see whether it has a Journal Impact Factor at all.
I’ve already paid. What should I do?
Send a mail to journal saying you are withdrawing the paper, and keep a copy of that mail. Don’t wait for their reply to look for another journal. The fee may not come back. Still, once the paper is withdrawn you can send it to a real journal. Inform your guide also.
Does this work for conference proceedings?
Partly, yes. The questions about fees, fast acceptance and fake metrics apply to proceedings also. With proceedings the standing comes from the conference and from whoever publishes the volume, and you have to look up that publisher’s indexing on your own.
Is anything I tick sent to you?
No, your answers stay with you. All the adding of points is done in the browser on your side. From our server we can see that someone used the checker, nothing more than that.
Stuck on a chapter? Talk it through with us.
Call or WhatsApp, say where you are in your thesis, and we’ll tell you plainly what kind of help makes sense, if any.