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How do I identify predatory journals? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm been trying to expanding to my scientific literacy and that has involved looking at articles in scientific journals; i.e. the peer-reviewed literature. However, not all journals are trust-worthy. I would like to believe that academic search engines like Google Scholar would filter out "junk science" articles that I can't rely on that always happening. So how do I spot "predatory" or "pseudo-journals"?

Sometimes, it's quite obvious: "Answers Research Journal" makes it clear that they exist for creationist confirmation bias. This, however, isn't always the case.

I also can't always rely on a publication's reputation. In that oh-so famous example, Andrew Wakefield exploited The Lancet's venerable reputation to publish a fraudulent study with consequences that still reverberate to this day.

Thanks in advance.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I want to fill in on the fact that any journal can end up publishing garbage science if someone is able to dupe the reviewers. This means that no matter what journal you're reading, you need to read science critically. Sensational claims require sensational evidence, and ideally any work should be 100% reproducible based on the information given in the article.

Depending on the field, you can also often get a good indicator by investigating the authors of the article (checking out the last author first is a good tip). This mostly applies to very recent research where looking at citations is a poor indicator of quality, but where research is often dominated by a few reputable research groups around the world.

For older research, looking at how often the article has been cited, by whom, and why, can give you a very good indicator of the quality of the research. Solid research is often built upon later, while garbage is often refuted and then abandoned.

Of course, none of the above is infallible, but if you read critically to ensure the research makes sense, find that it originates from a reputable group, and see that others have based newer research on it, it's probably trustworthy. After a while you start building up an impression of the most important names and journals in the field, but that requires reading quite a few articles and noticing which names and journals repeatedly show up.