We work with a lot of high school students on a daily basis and one of the biggest problems that students face is to detect a fake research journal. We know that a lot of consultants want you to publish in very quick result journal but you should remember that these journals have really bad reputations and may end up doing bad for you rather than good.
If you want to publish a paper and if someone is suggesting you a journal then look for the following signs to see if the journal is fake or not.
- Editorial Board : Editorial boards matter a lot since they are the authority who review your paper and kind of accredit it as well. For high school journal most of the times the editors are high school students which is fine but if someone is advertising a journal as a top one then do look at their editorial board and check the LinkedIn of these editorial people.
- Publication Frequency : Make sure that the journal is publishing consistent issues for the past at least five years.
- Review by the journal : Make sure that the journal properly reviews your paper especially when they advertise big claims like top impact factor etc. It should not be like that you pay and it get published without a plagiarism and an AI check.
- Diversity in Authors : Make sure that the authors are from diverse backgrounds — different universities, cities, countries, etc. The paper should not just publish for one type of demography
- Organisation backing the journal : What is the organisation that is backing the journal? How old is this organisation? Are they doing a brand of reputed journals or just some random publishers.
- Impact Factor : Remember one thing, if someone says that they will help you publish in a six impact factor journal then believe me they are lying to you. A journal with a six impact would attract top universities and authors. They won’t entertain a high school student. As a matter of fact, you will see that top high school journals never advertise any impact factor.
Remember a lot of people are out there to make money out of you. We should not worry if the money is put for the right thing but it is put in to fool you then please be aware. You can always write to us as well if you have any doubts or queries, we will help you for no charges at all – contact@eoslearning.com