A scientist from Taiwan using the pseudonym “Matan Schlomi” demonstrated how easy it is to get fake articles published. Moreover, the extent of this falsehood was not limited to lying, it had reached the level of complete nonsense and went beyond.
Just like the posts on social media, some studies published in scientific journals can be published as fake or articles that have no scientific equivalent. The journals in which these articles are published are also popular in the scientific world.looter magazineis defined as ‘.
Today, unfortunately, we are here with the event that is seen in almost every country around the world and how dangerous this path that many scientists follow to gain fame and points can be. A researcher is interested in publishing articles in predatory journals and maybe this way how easy it can be to get a professorship revealed.
“Scientific” journals put to the test with fake research:
A researcher, an assistant professor of entomology at the National Taiwan University, said, “Matan Schlomicarried out a test under the pseudonym ”. Matan’s goal was to do the most ridiculous research imaginable, use the most ridiculous references, and see if it would be published in predatory journals.
Matan started work in 2019 and 2020 and managed to have his first fabricated article published in December 2019. In March 2020, he expanded his work and managed to have two more fabricated articles published in two different journals. Each of these articles They were articles that somehow connected the Pokémon universe to life and biology.
The fabricated articles that Matan managed to get published and the journals in which they were published:
“Natives keep a few animals in close settlement with their families, with children as young as ten engaged in herding, hunting, selective breeding, and even the training of animals for ritual fights. One in particular, Ascofregata purine (Heveaceae: Tetrabalonoformes), or “jigglypuff“, is peridomestic and is used by acoustic biologists as “competitive song”, “extinction song”, “friend keeper” […] He is known to have produced several songs characterized by titles such as
Cyllage City was actually one of the cities in the Pokémon universe…
“The proto-oncogene Pokémon is typically overexpressed in cancers, and the Pikachurin protein is associated with ribbon synapses in the retina.”
As you can see from the three examples above, these journals actually did not intend to read Matan’s research before publishing it. They didn’t even read the references, let alone reading the whole thing. Because Matan was also talking about his creative nonsense in the references, even in the references section. He even included the name of John Cena… Some sample references in the studies were as follows:
- Rings on Standler (Pokémon) horns, Frontiers in Fake Research
- Imagine No Open Access. My Little PeerReviewed Journal. (My Little Peer Review Diary)
- What do they call a predatory magazine in France? Pulp Nonfiction.
- If you’ve come this far, you deserve a cookie. Pokemon Phylogenetics.
It was claimed that Academia Publishing, the publisher of one of the predatory journals, was used by many academics from Turkey:
Academic Ethics Turkey was hosting the ‘research’ of many Turkish academics by Academia Publishing, which published the research examining Pokémon proteins in its Twitter account. Moreover, the magazine Education-Sen in 2017 as a “Journal recommendation for those who will publish in a foreign language”. It was also shared:
So, how do you know if a magazine is a looter?
About predatory journals, one of the most fundamental problems of science all over the world. Council of Higher Educationhad made an official decision. On December 10, 2021, the Board of Directors of the Interuniversity Board met and approved the following items:
- Magazines that are not considered predatory/questionable:
- Journals in the Q1, Q2, Q3 classes in WEB of Science (with or without charge for editorial and/or printing processes),
- Journals that are in the Q4 class in WEB of Science and do not charge editorial processing charge and/or article processing charge,
- It is in the Q4 class of WEB of Science and has been published/published since 2010, which is the publication organ of a branch association, university, institute or scientific institution where only the members of the relevant science field can become a member, although it charges for editorial and/or printing processes. national/international journals working as
- Predatory/questionable journals: Q4 journals that do not meet the above criteria.
Apart from WEB of Science, which is also referenced by YÖK, you can also browse through Beall’s List for journals and publishers that are considered predatory/questionable.