[Predatory journals: how their publishers operate and how to avoid them]

Authors who publish in scientific or scholarly journals today face the risk of publishing in so-called predatory journals. These journals exploit the noble idea of the Open Access movement, whose goal is to make the latest scientific findings available for free. Predatory journals, unlike the reputable ones working on an Open Access basis, neglect the review process and publish low-quality submissions. The basic attributes of predatory journals are a very quick review process or even none at all, failure to be transparent about author fees for publishing an article, misleading potential authors by imitating the names of well-established journals, and false information on indexing in renowned databases or assigned impact factor. Some preventive measures against publishing in predatory journals or drawing information from them are: a thorough credibility check of the journals webpages, verification of the journals indexing on Bealls List and in the following databases: Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, ERIH PLUS and DOAJ. Asking other scientists or scholars about their experience with a given journal can also be helpful. Without these necessary steps authors face an increased risk of publishing in a journal of poor quality, which will prevent them from obtaining Research and Development Council points (awarded based on the Information Register of Research & Development results); even more importantly, it may damage their reputation as well as the good name of their home institution in the professional community.Key words: academic writing - medical journals - Open Access - predatory journals - predatory publishers - scientific publications.