Predatory publishing is an exploitative practice that targets authors to submit articles to a journal. Predatory publishers often target authors with promises of extremely fast publication, without providing the editorial or publishing services associated with legitimate journals. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is, especially if the publisher is asking for large sums of money!
Characteristics of predatory publishing:
From xkcd.com
First Contact
Research the Journal's website
Research the Publisher
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
If you would like assistance evalauting journals, reach out to your liaison librarian. Librarians can help you with: