After a long break blogging due to too much work in the last months, it is time for a small lighthearted post. Lighthearted, but nonetheless on an important topic: predatory publishers.
In order to keep at least partially in mind the basics of (my own) ethics (and to not provide free advertisement for journals which really do not deserve it), I will elegantly blur all the names of the journals by using fake names. The adventures I will describe here are however true, and happened a few weeks ago.
Opening my email box in the morning (something that we should all avoid if we are planning to have a nice day), I was surprised to see that I got an email from "International Current Frontiers in Dental Health" (this name is a fake), which was something as follow:
"Dear Dr. Matthieu Guitton,
Congratulations of the day! I have read your paper "The importance of studying the dark side of social networks" with great interest (common, I hope you did ! It is one of my papers afterall !), and I can tell that you are an expert in the field.
Therefore, I would like to invite you to submit a paper in the International Current Frontiers in Dental Health."
Oh my, you could see that I am an expert in dental health (dental health! DENTAL HEALTH!!!!) by having read a one-page editorial on cyberpsychology? Well, I knew I was a great writer, but that you could see from this one page text absolutely unrelated to dental health that I am a world expert in this field ... I am flattered. Or, wait ... Would that mean that you actually did not read my paper?????
But it gets better (yes it does).
The same day, I received three invitations from "World Global Journal of Internal Medicine" (this name is a fake). First, before going to the content of the emails and invitations, I need to make a small note on the sender himself. As indeed, the emails were coming from a person named "Silvester Stallone" (this person was also, according to the journal address, from Pakistan).
So, it is already quite uncommon from someone in Pakistan to have Stalone as a family name. But to be so unlucky so that your parents would name you "Silvester" in addition ... and that you would have, once adult, to send emails world-wide to international scientists ... Really, what an unlucky guy. Or maybe, be more imaginative (or at least natural) when taking a pseudonym if you want your journal to be taken just a bit seriously ?
Anyway, back to my invitations.
The first one went as follow:
"Dear Dr. Matthieu Guitton,
Greetings of the day! I have read your paper "Tinnitus: pathology of synaptic plasticity at the cellular and system levels" with great interest , and I can tell that you are an expert in the field (please note the originality of the rhetoric, quite different from the semantics of the invitation I got the same day from the previous journal).
Therefore, I would like to invite you to submit a paper in the World Global Journal of Internal Medicine."
Ok, maybe. Although I don't really see how tinnitus is connected to internal medicine, but why not? Oh wait, I just got a second email from the same journal ! Here it goes:
"Dear Dr. Matthieu Guitton,
Greetings of the day! I have read your paper "Tinnitus and anxiety: more than meets the ear" with great interest (ok, maybe the Editor-in-Chief has tinnitus and finds it a central topic in Internal Medicine), and I can tell that you are an expert in the field .
Therefore, I would like to invite you to submit a paper in the World Global Journal of Internal Medicine."
Mmmmm, of course I am still very flattered, but, well, now it is getting a bit suspicious.
Oh wait, I got a THIRD email in my box from the same journal !
"Dear Dr. Matthieu Guitton,
Greetings of the day! I have read your paper "Living in the Hutt Space: Immersive Process in the Star Wars Role-Play community of Second Life" with great interest, and I can tell that you are an expert in the field .
Therefore, I would like to invite you to submit a paper in the World Global Journal of Internal Medicine."
Seriously ??????
This paper deals with the Star Wars fan community, and specifically with people interested by the Hutts. How is that connected to internal medicine? To make this point clear, here is a Hutt:
This is a Hutt
Or maybe the Editor-in-Chief of the journal is really far-sighted and wants to help policy makers to take responsible decisions regarding racial susceptibility to obesity: with the Hutts being more prone to be overweighted than humans (we should remember than a healthy mature Hutt Lord such as Jabba the Hutt can easily weight up to one metric tone). I mean, good policy makers dealing with public health should take into consideration both human and non-human alien species ...
Sadly enough, I was afraid that the Reviewers (because I am sure that my paper that I would have submitted to this journal and (I forgot to mention it) would have been peer-reviewed with final decision within 2 days as mentionned in the invitation letter, and published for the friendly fees of 500 US Dollar) would not be as open-minded that the Editor-in-Chief, and that they might not see how studying the Star Wars virtual community would have a direct and significant impact on the advancement of our knowledge in Internal Medicine ... so I finally, and with a lot of hesitations, decided not to write and submit a paper to them and instead, well, work on serious papers for serious journals, maybe ?
