Abstract
Some older colleagues have told about their feeling that publishing their surgical manuscripts has become more difficult during the last decades. Frustrated comments supporting these feelings have been heard elsewhere: There has been an explosion of scientific publications that has overwhelmed the publication system and has made it impossible either for the traditional, and generally effective, peer review system to work or for the scientific community to evaluate a lot of scientific research. (1)
Every study group does its best to get as much output as possible. Efficiency is the name of the game nowadays, also in science, which has resulted in that quantity and quality commonly seem to exclude each other.
A dramatic change in the publishing industry has happened during the last 10 to 20 years, because of World Wide Web and electoric journals. Being a subscriber is not the point any more, while printed journals are not fast and practical enough. Many libraries are no longer purchasing traditional journal issues. At the same time, open access publishing in electronic journals has allowed for articles to be read and used by more researchers across the world.
These two changes together, higher research activity globally and the birth of open access publishing in electronic journals, have been a favorable breeding ground for many side effects. Not all publishers of electronic open access journals are working in good faith. These journals prey on articles, given that the authors are prepared to pay a satisfactory processing fee. They are called predatory journals, while their first intention is to maximize the gains. Therefore, all authors must be aware of submitting any manuscript to a predatory journal. Every manuscript is a child of the authors, usually completed with sweat and blood, and a careless submission may damage this child, permanently. A fine research article in a corrupted journal is not a fine research article any more. The most important reason for that is the lack of the peer review, which is a fundamental limitation. While acceptance depends on money, instead of a recommendation by the expertise peers, one can never presume that any article is completely reliable. There will always be misgivings.
Predatory journals are not a problem for the authors only, but a real nuisance to all clinicians. When one is looking for valuable information about a clinical question, disease, injury, or treatment, he or she can never trust in all articles in the Internet. For an innocent “google-seeker,” who is inexperienced in scientific publication, it may be an insurmountable problem to distinguish sincere and treacherous journals (2). Thus, here are a couple of signs of treacherous journals: Their names may imitate some appreciated journals in the research field. The background of the publisher is unclear, and there is no scientific association in collaboration. The editorial board is unclear, and the contact information or affiliations are hardly available. The impact factor is usually lacking, and the Scopus or other databases with quality control do not recognize the journal. The price of publication, in case of acceptance, may not be apparent prior to submission (3). The predatory journals typically send huge numbers of call for submission via emails, especially for younger researcher (4).
Appreciating that it is not always an elevating experience to submit a manuscript repeatedly before acceptance, one should still stay with high-quality journals. Publishing in predatory journals does not give any instant win. The authors should keep in mind that an intensive but fair peer-review process is the best the article can get. The traditional journals with long history, consistent publication policy, and academically merited editors are all contributing in the credible publishing. However, in this time, the traditional journals cannot sit on their laurels, but they need to grind their processes, take care of undelayed progression from the submission to the decision, and be moderate with price setting.
