European Science Editing 51: e137960, doi: 10.3897/ese.2025.e137960
Stinging predatory journals: a brief overview and recommendations
Adam Larson‡, Matan Shelomi§‡ Carthage College, Kenosha, WI, United States of America§ National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Corresponding author: Adam Larson ( alarson1@carthage.edu ) Academic editor: Ashley Cooper © Adam Larson, Matan Shelomi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Larson A, Shelomi M (2025) Stinging predatory journals: a brief overview and recommendations. European Science Editing 51: e137960. https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2025.e137960 |  |
Abstract
Predatory journals exploit the open access model for profit, often publishing papers with minimal or nonexistent peer review. Predatory publishing stings can identify predatory publishers and increase awareness of the problem, but there are no guidelines for effective stings. We propose that stings should include peer review red flags that would stop the sting from being accepted by reputable journals, be followed by a public sting statement to alert others to the predatory journal identified and predatory publishing in general, and avoid both payment to predatory publishers and risk to the stinger.
Keywords
Academic publishing, peer review, predatory journals, predatory publishing, publishing stings