Not content with past exposes of predatory journals, Discover.com blogger Neuroskeptic tells the tale of hir own saga fighting the evil empire. In hir words,
I wanted to test whether ‘predatory‘ journals would publish an obviously absurd paper. So I created a spoof manuscript about “midi-chlorians” – the fictional entities which live inside cells and give Jedi their powers in Star Wars. I filled it with other references to the galaxy far, far away, and submitted it to nine journals under the names of Dr Lucas McGeorge and Dr Annette Kin.
The idea being that many hoaxes would be obvious to those with an understanding of the relevant field(s), but typically would not be obvious to those without expertise. The question, I suppose, was merely one of how brazen are the fraudulent and predatory journals in their ethical violations, not simply whether they are acting ethically. The results? Out of 9 publishers who received the manuscript: