EMAIL Correspondence Archives - Predatory Journals and Conferences

We recently saw an email (in fact we are forwarded a lot of emails, for which we are thankful) and we thought we would just take a closer look at this one as it had some interesting aspects, which might be useful (or, at least, amusing) to others. Coincidentally, as we were completing this article, we noticed that we had previously written about email communication with JSM Dentistry.You may also be interested in looking at that article. It was written about 11 months prior to this one, but the points it makes are still valid. The EMAIL The figure below shows the email that was shared with us. We have removed the name of the person who received it to protect their identity. Annotated email that wes received from JSM Denistry We have annotated the email, with colored highlighting, so that we can more easily refer to the various parts of the email below. EMAIL Title The email title (highlighted in red) does not have "Re:" or "Fwd:" in front of the subject title. Later in the email the sender refers to a previous email. Assuming this was the case, that is a previous email had been sent, you would expect to see "Re:", "Fwd:" or some other prefix to the subject? At least we think so. Who sent the email? Looking at the yellow highlights, at the bottom of the email, it says that it is from Smith Alison. This is the same name in the first part of the sender details (top of the email), but there is also another name given (Adam Smith). The person who sent us this email said that if they hit reply it goes to the Adam Smith email address. We can't quite work out what is going on here. Perhaps it is Smith Alison (or should that be Alison Smith) using Adam's email, or perhaps there is one generic email address (Adam Smith) that many people use for this journal? What is the domain of the email? This email has been sent by JSM Dentistry, which is published by SciMedCentral, yet the email is being sent from researchnetwrk.org (see the green highlight). We are not sure why another domain would be used? If you enter researchnetwrk.org into a browser, it leads to a page showing that the domain is registered but there is no web site (see image below). We did a WhoIs search on both SciMedCentral and researchnetwrk.org. The information for researchnetwrk is mostly redacted but you can see that it is registered in the US (Arizona). There is more information for SciMedCentral and this is also registered in the US (also Arizona). Was there a previous email? The blue highlighted part of the email suggests that there was a previous email. The person who sent us this email says that they could not recall receiving a previous email. The fact that there was no "Re:" or "Fwd:" (see above) supports the fact that there was no previous email, although the omission of "Re:" and "Fwd:" is by no means conclusive proof. We also note that the previous email (if there was one) was not attached. In fact, we have noticed this a lot. When a (typically) predatory journal sends a follow up email, or responds to an email you sent them, the previous email trail is often missing. We have never been able to work out why they would delete the email trail. Anybody know? Is the English good enough? It's only a small thing but if you look at the orange highlight, the English grates a little. Rather than saying "we are in the process of issue releasing in January", it would be more correct to say "we are in the process of releasing the January issue." We only mention this as one of the indications of a predatory journal is poor grammar. Other Comments No link to journal Given that there is no URL in the email, and the previous email has not been provided, how does the reader know where to find more information about the journal, let alone how to submit? The journal's web site In case you are interested in looking at the web site of JSM Dentistry, you can see it here. We have taken a look, and we have some issues with it, but we have not looked closely enough to pass comment at this point in time. The publisher JSM Dentistry is published by SciMedCentral. The publisher has about 140 journals in it portfolio. We plan to take a closer look at this publisher in the near future. Final Comment We wish to emphasize that we have only looked at this email so are not in a position to say whether JSM Dentistry, or any of the other journals in the SciMedCentral portfolio, are predatory. Further investigation is required before we could reach any conclusions.