Saturday, February 4, 2023

Global Research Letters: One-day Peer Review and Ghost-written Articles?

Global Research Letters has an identity crisis. On its website, it calls itself "GRL Journals," a single "journal [that] is dedicated to publishing high-quality research papers in all areas of science and technology." Never mind that it publishes papers with titles like "A New Calvinist: Reformation of Rights" and "The University of Virginia's Honor Code."

On Linkedin, it presents itself as both an "internationally recognized peer-review journal" and a "publishing solution [that] includes journals, Books, Thesis, Dissertation, Conference Proceedings, Abstract Book, Conference Special Issue, Preprints, etc." Whatever GRL is, at least it is "committed to ... maintaining publishing integrity for the benefit of humanity."

But its notion of "publishing integrity" is unusual (I hope). You can publish a paper there without writing it.

Another great service that GRL Journals offers is that if you do not have a paper ready but have a topic, you can order a paper from us. We will write the paper for you and submit it. The charges for this service are 4500 INR. This is a great option for researchers who may not have the time or resources to write a paper themselves.

You also can announce that the paper is peer-reviewed, for the journal "take[s] great care to ensure that all papers are reviewed by experts in their respective fields. This helps to ensure that only the most scientifically rigorous and well-written papers are published in our journal."

Again, you'll have to ignore the reality of the actual review process, which contributed to such "scientifically rigorous" papers as "Why Am I Reading This Case?," a long-winded missive from legal educators to their students with a list of seemingly randomly-generated references that have nothing to do with the text.

Moreover, you had better not tell anyone that the vaunted peer review occurs in a single day.

One of the key advantages of publishing with GRL Journals is our quick publication process. We understand that time is of the essence for researchers, which is why we strive to ensure that our peer-review process is completed within one day. Once the paper has been reviewed and approved, it will be published in just two days. This means that you can have your research paper online and available for others to read and cite in a matter of days.

Linkedin lists one employee for GRL -- Harshit Agarwal, identified there as "Director at Growth Guide." The GRL website lists Dr. Agarwal as editor-in-chief and affiliated with the "institute" of the University of Portsmouth, University House, Winston Churchill Ave, Portsmouth, England PO1 2UP. The rest of "editorial team" are with the following "institutes": GK Research Foundation, Well Being Research, and Growth Guide.

The address is Ithum Tower, Sector 2, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. The Regus Ithum Tower has "co-working space" available.