Thursday 18 April 2019

publications - Is it a good idea to cite paper from publisher listed in Beall’s list


While writing the literature review for my paper, I found another paper which is closely related to my research. Unfortunately, the paper’s publisher is on Beall’s List. Hence, I wonder if citing the paper will have any negative impact on my paper.



Answer



Do not think about the journal where the paper comes from. Just forget about it for a while.



Now, read the paper. Even better, be a reviewer for that paper. Evaluate it. Is it a good related work for you? Is it a not-so-good related work, so that you can criticize it? Does it help you to build some hypotheses, etc.? Then, just cite it. Otherwise, don't.


This is what you are supposed to do as a researcher. Build on top of other's work. Bad papers are in every kind of journal. Good papers are, as well.


Beall's list is useful up to a certain point but it has got limitations. One of which, it is a one-man's work. I do not want to criticize the list here because it does not even matter how good that list is. Be your own judge for the work you cite. Where the paper comes from is, in my opinion, the least of the issues you could ever encounter.


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