Mehdi Dadkhah
1,2* 
, Abdul Majed Raja
3, Aamir Raoof Memon
4, Glenn Borchardt
5 , Prema Nedungadi
6, Khaled Abu-Eteen
7, Raghu Raman
8,91 Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala, India.
2 Technology forecasting department, SnowaTec Technology center and Innovation Factory, Entekhab Industrial Group, Isfahan, Iran.
3 Data Scientist, Atlassian, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
4 Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
5 Progressive Science Institute, 1966 TICE VALLEY BLVD #172, WALNUT CREEK, CA 94595-2203, USA.
6 Amrita School of Computing, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala, India.
7 The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 330127- Zarqa 13115, Jordan.
8 Amrita School of Business, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri, Kerala, India.
9 Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Abstract
Purpose: Flattering emails are crucial in tempting authors to submit papers to predatory journals. Although there is ample literature regarding the questionable practices of predatory journals, the nature and detection of spam emails need more attention. Current research provides insight into fallacious calls for papers from potential predatory journals and develops a toolkit in this regard.
Methods: In this study, we analyzed three datasets of calls for papers from potential predatory journals and legitimate journals using a text mining approach and R programming language.
Results: Overall, most potential predatory journals use similar language and templates in their calls for papers. Importantly, these journals praise themselves in glorious terms involving positive words that may be rarely seen in emails from legitimate journals. Based on these findings, we developed a lexicon for detecting unsolicited calls for papers from potential predatory journals.
Conclusion: We conclude that calls for papers from potential predatory journals and legitimate journals are different, and it can help to distinguish them. By providing an educational plan and easily usable tools, we can deal with predatory journals better than previously.