You know the feeling. You’re skimming yet another paper that’s clearly a cut-and-paste job — same data, new angle. You sigh and wonder: Who’s actually reading this? The answer is nobody. Because the paper wasn’t written to be read. It was written to check a box. And here’s the part that stings: that box was built by people just like you.
The narrative is comfortable: evil publishers, predatory journals, open-access scams. But the data tells a different story. A study in Frontiers in Psychology lays it bare: the junkification of research isn’t driven by journals — it’s driven by researchers themselves. We are the ones gaming the system, inflating our citation counts, chopping papers into salami slices, and submitting redundant manuscripts. Journals are just the marketplace. We are the suppliers.
We have met the enemy, and he is us — with a tenure clock and a grant deadline.
I remember watching a PhD student cry because her fourth paper was rejected. She had three already that year. That’s not a sustainable pace; that’s a factory. But the system demands it. Your h-index is your identity, and the easiest way to raise it is to publish more, not better. My advisor once told me, “Publish or perish isn’t a threat — it’s a business strategy.” He wasn’t wrong. He was just honest about the game we all play.
When your promotion depends on volume, volume becomes the truth.
We spend years demonizing journals like MDPI and Frontiers, but they only succeed because we feed them. Every time you submit a marginal paper, you’re validating the model. Every time you pad your list with a “brief report” that says nothing, you’re voting for junk. The hypercompetitive academic culture trains researchers to cut corners from day one. By the time you’re a tenured professor, the habit is baked in.
It’s time to stop the hypocrisy. If we want better science, we have to change our own behavior — not just boycott a few publishers. The real lever is not external regulation; it’s internal reform of the incentive system. That means rethinking how we evaluate each other: fewer metrics, more peer judgment of quality. It means daring to say “no” to a line on a CV when the work is thin.
The next time you complain about predatory journals, ask yourself: When was the last time you said no to an easy publication?
The revolution doesn’t start with Elsevier. It starts with you. Look in the mirror. The junk is in your hands.
FAQ
Q: But aren't predatory journals the real problem? They publish anything for money.
A: Predatory journals exist because researchers submit to them. The demand creates the supply. If every researcher stopped submitting low-quality work, junk journals would collapse. The blame should be shared.
Q: What can I do as an individual researcher?
A: Stop chasing metrics. Publish only work you’re proud of. Support initiatives like registered reports. Advocate for promotion criteria that value quality over quantity. Small acts compound.
Q: Isn't this blaming the victim? Researchers are just responding to incentives.
A: Yes, but incentives are set by peers — by senior academics who control hiring and tenure. The system is not an external force; it’s a collective agreement. We have the power to renegotiate it, one department at a time.