What Is a Predatory Journal? A Plain-Language Guide

Predatory journals look like journals, and are not

What is a predatory journal, in one sentence: a publication that mimics the appearance of a legitimate academic journal while skipping the editorial and peer-review practices that make a journal legitimate. It takes an article processing charge from the author, publishes with little or no meaningful review, and returns a citation-shaped object the author can list on a CV or in a bibliography.

The scale has grown quickly. Cabells’ Predatory Reports database, which evaluates journals against more than seventy indicators of predatory behaviour, passed 15,000 listed titles in September 2021 and passed 20,000 in early 2026 (Cabells, 2026). That number is larger than the entire DOAJ index of vetted open-access journals, which lists around 21,000 titles.

The Nature consensus definition

Grudniewicz and colleagues (2019), writing in Nature, produced a Delphi-consensus definition of a predatory journal after asking 43 experts across publishing, ethics, and research to align on shared criteria. The consensus, in their words: predatory journals and publishers “prioritise self-interest at the expense of scholarship.” They are characterised by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial practice, lack of transparency, and aggressive solicitation (Grudniewicz et al., 2019, Nature, 576:210-212).

Four features come out of that definition, and each has an operational check:

• False or misleading information: the journal claims impact factors, indexing status, or editorial board members that do not exist.
• Deviation from best editorial practices: peer review is absent, cursory, or fabricated.
• Lack of transparency: article processing charges, editorial contact, and ownership are hidden or inconsistent.
• Aggressive solicitation: unsolicited emails asking authors to submit, especially outside the author’s field.

Any one of the four is a warning. Two or more is a working diagnosis.

Why this matters for a thesis bibliography

Every viva has a citations question, and predatory citations surface at the moment an examiner tries to check the source. Park (2003) notes that examiners spot-check bibliographies during their reading of the thesis, and predatory citations are one of the specific things a careful examiner looks for. A single citation from a journal that turns out to have no meaningful peer review changes the tone of the discussion, because it tells the panel the candidate did not vet the venue.

The larger point is intellectual, not defensive. If a claim in your thesis rests on a paper published in a journal that does not peer review, the claim rests on something less than a peer-reviewed finding. Building an argument on that foundation is not automatically wrong, but it needs the candidate to know what they are building on. Silent use of a predatory source is what examiners catch. Venue is one of several filters; see how to evaluate sources for a literature review.

Where predatory journals come from

Predatory publishing grew alongside legitimate open access publishing. The open-access model, where authors pay an article processing charge to make their work freely readable, is not itself predatory. Legitimate open-access journals are vetted through the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which checks editorial policy, peer-review process, transparency, and license disclosure before listing.

Predatory publishers copy the surface of open-access publishing without the vetting. They set up a plausible-looking website, list a mixed board that may not have consented, and solicit submissions. Because they charge fees per article and do little review, the marginal cost of adding a new title is low. This is why the count keeps rising.

Beall’s List, maintained by librarian Jeffrey Beall at the University of Colorado Denver from 2010 to 2017, was the first widely used index of predatory publishers. The list was taken offline in January 2017 under pressure from publishers named on it (Beall, 2017). Since then, subscription-based services like Cabells’ Predatory Reports and community-maintained resources have partly replaced it.

The habits that catch predatory sources early

A few checks catch most predatory sources before they enter a bibliography. Our guide on how to spot a predatory journal before you cite it covers the seven places the signals show up.

• Check the DOAJ. If the journal is listed, it has passed a vetting process. If it is not listed, that is not proof of predation, but it is a prompt to look further.
• Check the journal against Cabells’ Predatory Reports (a paid database) or the open-source Directory of Predatory Journals maintained by researcher communities.
• Search for the journal’s editorial board members. Do they exist as researchers in the claimed field? Have they published in the journal themselves?
• Search for the article’s peer reviewers or peer-review policy. Legitimate journals describe their review process. Predatory ones often do not.
• Query the DOI in Crossref. Real journals register DOIs and metadata. Predatory ones sometimes do, sometimes not.

Running these checks by hand for every citation in a doctoral bibliography is slow. Thesisroom’s citation guard looks every entry up in the academic record automatically, so a fabricated or retracted citation surfaces in one pass; whether the venue is predatory remains a check you make.

What Thesisroom does with this

Thesisroom’s citation guard looks every bibliography entry up in the academic record, drawing on ten registries. A retracted work, a DOI that does not resolve, or details that do not match the record are surfaced with the reason for the flag; it does not judge whether a journal is predatory. The full method treats venue-checking as a habit that starts in year one, so the sources you build your literature review on have already been vetted before they reach the reference list.

The tool does not maintain its own list of predatory journals. It runs the checks that legitimate journals pass and predatory ones typically fail, and the reader decides what to do with the flag. AI research tools add a further risk; see AI tools that cite retracted or predatory sources.

Frequently asked questions

How many predatory journals are there?

Cabells’ Predatory Reports database listed more than 20,000 predatory journals as of early 2026, up from 15,000 in September 2021 (Cabells, 2026). The count has grown roughly in step with legitimate open-access publishing, and the two are now similar in scale.

Is every open-access journal predatory?

No. Legitimate open-access publishing is a widely accepted model, and journals vetted by DOAJ meet clear editorial and transparency standards. Predatory journals mimic the surface of open access without the vetting. The distinction is in the editorial process, not the pricing model.

How do predatory journals get past authors?

They mimic the appearance of legitimate journals well. The website looks professional, the editorial board is named, and the submission process is fast. Authors under time pressure, or those looking for quick publication of preliminary work, are more vulnerable. Aggressive email solicitation is a common recruitment method.

Can I cite a paper published in a predatory journal?

You can, but the citation carries less weight than a peer-reviewed citation and needs to be treated accordingly. If the argument rests on the finding, name the venue’s status honestly or find a peer-reviewed source that supports the same claim. Silent citation of a predatory source is what examiners catch.

Is Beall’s List still available?

The original list was taken offline in January 2017. Archived copies exist online, but they are frozen and increasingly out of date. Current tools include Cabells’ Predatory Reports (subscription) and community-maintained resources. The DOAJ, from the opposite direction, lists journals that have passed vetting rather than journals that have failed.

How can I check a journal quickly?

Check DOAJ first: is the journal listed? Then search for the editorial board members: do they exist and publish in the field? Then check Crossref for registered DOIs. If the journal fails two or more of the four features in the Grudniewicz et al. (2019) definition, treat the citation as suspect and look for a replacement.

One takeaway before you close this tab

A predatory journal is a journal-shaped object that skipped the editorial process that makes a journal a journal. The Grudniewicz et al. (2019) definition gives you four features to check, and the DOAJ, Cabells, and Crossref cover most of the automatic checks. Running the same checks across a whole bibliography is what Thesisroom’s citation guard does in one pass, so the vetting happens at the scale of the reference list rather than one entry at a time.

References

Beall, J. (2017). What I learned from predatory publishers. Biochemia Medica, 27(2), 273-278.

Cabells. (2026). Predatory Reports database.

Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., Cobey, K. D., et al. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature, 576, 210-212.

Park, C. (2003). Levelling the Playing Field: Towards Best Practice in the Doctoral Viva. Higher Education Review, 36(1), 47-67.