How much can you believe scientific journals that discuss dizziness or hearing issues ?

Timothy C. Hain, M.D. • Last edited: July 26, 2020

This site contains references to a great many journals. It is important to realize that not all of these sources are as believable as others. In other words, the proportion of "fake news", is higher in certain types of publications than others.

Some of these journals are called "predatory journals". The idea here is that the goal of the journal is a commercial one rather than an attempt to improve the world's fund of knowledge. The individuals paying to have their writing published are being "preyed upon" by the organizers of the journal. According to the New Yorker, in an article written by "Alan Burdick" -- (a writer), " ( A Finnish study found that, between 2010 and 2014, the number of articles published by predatory journals grew from fifty-three thousand to almost half a million." Mr. Burdick does not provide a reference to the "Finnish study", but anyway, one gets the general idea here.

The validity of a source of information depends on many factors. Lets think about a few of these.

1. What type of writing is this anyway ?

2. Expertise of writer --

3. Potential for bias -- Kaper et al (2018) reported that only 5 of 1500 otolaryngology journals had a "low risk of bias".

4. Is there a reasonable review process ?

5. Are the journals indexed in Pubmed ? Do the journals have any impact on the field ? Do they have a high quality score (Scopus SNIP). Through his academic resources, Dr. Hain has available some tools that provide reasonable data concerning the quality of journals. Here are 3 factors which he thinks are important. The last one (the "SNIP") score is the one that best reflects quality.

The following incorporates some of Dr. Hain's opinions, that may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the academic community at large. However, we have included Impact scores and SNIP scores, which are independent of Dr. Hain's ideas about quality.

Lowest quality journals related to dizziness or hearing:

Medium quality journals related to dizziness or hearing:

High quality journals that publish articles relevant to dizziness or hearing: