LETTER: ‘Predatory’ journal lacks credibility

I refer to the article by Ghaleb Cachalia (“Vital for DA to address cognitive dissonance that plagues SA”, February 29). 

This comment is not on the core of Cachalia’s argument but on the quality of the journal cited in building the argument. The International Journal of Social Science and Business has in its name two indicators of possible low quality, namely the word “international” and too broad a scope or coverage. Both these indicators are associated with low-quality or often predatory journals.

Looking at the journal’s website I notice that it covers an incredibly wide number of fields, including diverse and usually incompatible ones such as finance, public administration and women studies. The website displays an antiplagiarism graphic where plagiarism is misspelled as “plagiartsm”.

A Google search of the journal title and the keyword “predatory” finds website https://predatoryreports.org/home, which is of the opinion that the journal is predatory. Articles in low-quality and even predatory journals cannot be relied on for knowledge, and this is undermining the academy.

The lack of quality of the journal in which it was published may explain why the article cited by Cachalia is “little-known”.

Prof Phillip de Jager 
Department of finance & tax, University of Cape Town

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