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What to Expect from Legitimate Publishers
| Category | Typical of Legitimate Journals | Predatory Publishing |
| Aims and Scope |
Provide a clear definition on what material is included |
Broad Scope |
| Aims and Scope | Generally have 1 - 2 medical categories, range of 1 - 16 | Generally have 1 - 4 medical categories, range of 1 - 31 |
| Journal Name | Fairly unique name | Higher probability of similar journal name to legitimate journals |
| Publisher Information | Publisher name provided on website | 50/50 on publisher name provided |
| Publisher Information | Publisher URL provided | Must be found via Google or does not exist |
| Location | Country name same as contact information | Country name differs from contact information |
| Email Address | Professional Email address | May use gmail or yahoo |
| Email Content | Professional approach | Contains spelling and grammatical errors, or slang used |
| Website | Targeted to mostly readers | Targeted to mostly authors |
| Metrics | May have impact factor, SciMago, Overall ranking, etc | May have fake metrics or other values like Index Copernicus Value, Global Impact Factor, Total citations |
| Indexing | May be indexed in PubMed, MEDLINE, CINHAL, EMBASE, PsychInfo | May be indexed in PubMed (but NOT Medline), Google Scholar, etc |
| Staff | Easy to validate Editor in Cheif, journal staff, and institutional affiliation | Fake journal staff or used without permission |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes | Half peer reviewed |
| Submission method | Third party or journal specific | Email, journal specific, or other |
| Retraction policy | Yes | low percent allow for retractions |
| Preservation | Digital Preservation mentioned | Preservation information lacking |
Adapted from Shamseer et al. (2017). Potential predatory and legitimate biomedical journals: can you tell the difference? A cross-sectional comparison. BMC Medicine. 15:28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-017-0785-9