International Journal of Lousy Research

Jeffrey Beall's blacklist of "predatory open-access journals" -- discussed in yesterday's New York Times -- provides evidence for my long-standing suspicion of any journal named "International Journal of ..." There probably are some good journals named "International Journal of...", but I don't know of any off-hand. And there seem to be an awful lot of bad ones, probably for good reason: An internationally-recognized journal doesn't have to say so. So almost by definition a journal that has to call itself "International Journal of" is probably not a well-known journal.

In general, nearly every journal on the list has some location in its name, such as South Asian Journal of Mathematics, which doubles down by referring to itself on its home page as an "international journal". Again, there are, of course, good journals with region-specific names. But there don't seem to be many. I'm less sure of the reason for this one.

[Future Post: Explaining why universities that market themselves as "The Harvard of" some region are frequently not even the most prestigious school in that region.]