Q: Is World journal of surgery and surgical research a predatory journal?

Detailed Question -

I want to submit my manuscript to World journal of surgery and surgical research, but it is not on PubMed. Does it mean it is a predatory journal?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Whether a journal is indexed in PubMed or not is not the only indicator of the legitimacy of a journal. The definition of “predatory” is no longer strictly delineated because of varying degrees of predatory or illegitimate practices in publishing.

There are a number of indexing databases, but the fact that a journal on surgery is not indexed in PubMed is a bit surprising. Further, Remedy Publications, the publisher of World Journal of Surgery and Surgical Research, appeared on the archived version of Beall’s list of potential predatory journals (https://beallslist.net/). If your institution has access to Cabell’s white list and blacklist of journals, you could cross-check this there.

According to the free Think.Check.Submit checklist, we could determine the following:

  • Is the publisher name clearly displayed on the journal website? YES
  • Is the journal clear about the type of peer review it uses? YES
  • Are articles indexed in services that you use? NO
  • Is it clear what fees will be charged? YES
  • Does the journal site explain what these fees are for and when they will be charged? YES
  • Do they belong to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)? NO
  • If the journal is open access, is it listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? NO
  • If the journal is open access, does the publisher belong to the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA)? NO

For some other points, we request that you check the following as well:

  • Do you or your colleagues know the journal?
  • Have you read any articles in the journal before?
  • Is it easy to discover the latest papers in the journal?
  • Can you contact the publisher by telephone, email, and post?
  • Have you heard of the editorial board members?
  • Do the editorial board mention the journal on their own websites?

From the information we can gather, we feel that while World Journal of Surgery and Surgical Research is not fake, it might be considered slightly dubious or in a gray area between predatory and legitimate.

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