As a follow-up to my earlier post on predatory journals I thought I would share some of the many invitations I have received since it appeared 🙂 What I do find annoying is that our email Firewall system sis extremely efficient at intercepting real emails and putting them on hold for us to approve, but that all the emails shown below got straight through the system without any trouble.
Over the top glorification!
Beware of journals that use over the top language trying to appeal to your vanity.
Poor English is always a clue that things are not what they seem.
Precious indeed!
Totally wrong discipline
It is always a bit of a give-away when over the top language is coupled with a journal title where the field is somewhat removed from your own. I am an entomologist and ecologist.
and then you have this journal – they desperately need a proof reader 🙂
These journals make the mistake of advertising a totally unrealistic publication schedule
It is possible that if they had put a more realistic publication schedule an engineer might have fallen for this one.
Cunning ploys
Here are a couple of examples where they are trying a bit harder and getting a bit more sophisticated.
The name of a real journal, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment highlighted to take advantage of the careless reader.
The suggestion that they are on the look-out for reviewers implies a certain degree of respectability.
I am sure that you have all had similar emails, but if you have had even more outrageous or more cunning invitations, please feel free to share.
Don't Forget the Roundabouts 
Great topic, Simon. Some funny ones there for sure. I used to get them quite regularly, and many were much worse than your examples. None in the last little while, and I now wish I would have kept them!Some of them seem to try to cover every conceivable discipline there is (they might as well call themselves The Journal of Everything), and others are just twisting themselves into pretzels trying to make you feel important. Words (or their forms) like eminent, distinguished (if they can spell it), gracious, exulted, remarkable, exceptional, etc are often peppered throughout the invitation, presumably to flatter you, but accomplishing exactly the opposite since no self-respecting editor would use language like that. Nevertheless, these letters provide some undeniable entertainment, and I hope you get a bunch of examples in the responses!
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Thanks
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I still get them, especially the ones way out of my area. Does anyone actually respond to these requests?
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I had a PhD student that used to ask me if he should submit a paper, and judging by some of the cvs I receive from Pakistan and India, yes
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This FB post by Alec McClay is a great example. See the comments as well, particularly re. a prof at a small university here in BC who has been suspended related to a paper he wrote. https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10217346334468803&id=1186694102
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My favorite is when I’m addressed with the name of all authors on of my papers. Another good one was when some journal really liked my corrections to a paper and asked if I had anything similar to publish in their journal
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Yes I get those too, but being asked to publish your corrections is new one 🙂
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