I’m probably just naive and am definitely far too idealistic, but the email I just received crushed my spirit. I need to share it. Here’s the email with contact information removed but the website still intact so everyone can see who is doing this:
Dear Professor,
I’m XXXXX, a researcher at Well-online, the flagship editorial service of the UK’s Well-online Science Press. In the in-depth study and extensive exchange of the latest academic achievements in the field of literature and philosophy, we deeply admire your outstanding contributions and profound attains in this field. Given your authoritative position and insight in this field, we invite you to join our judging team to promote further development and wider dissemination of literary and philosophical research.
As our permanent reviewer, you will be responsible for evaluating papers submitted to Well Online in the fields of literature and philosophy, providing valuable feedback on multiple dimensions from academic originality to logical rigor. We believe that your professional perspective will greatly improve the quality of the manuscript and promote the healthy exchange and development of the academic community.
In recognition and respect for your hard work, we offer a payment of $30 per review, which will be settled through PayPal, a secure and convenient payment platform. Rest assured that we are committed to complying with international standards in all payment processes to ensure that your rights are properly protected.
Other cooperation opportunities:
In addition to its review work, Well-online is committed to providing a diverse range of paid academic collaboration services, including but not limited to:
Article writing: According to your research interests and expertise, we can arrange customized article writing projects.
Review of Published articles: Write in-depth reviews of published articles in the field of philosophy, as opposed to reviewing manuscripts, this will be a platform to showcase your unique insights.
Citation Collaboration: If your paper is under review, minor or major revisions are being made, and you plan to submit revisions later, please let me know.
If you are interested in this invitation, or want to know more about the cooperation details, please feel free to reply to this email. If you have any cooperation ideas related to the publication of this article, please do not hesitate to contact me. We look forward to establishing a long-term and fruitful cooperation relationship with you, and jointly contribute to the development of the field of philosophy.
Best wishes
XXXXX
Well-online researcher
Working Email: XXXX@wellonline.uk
Website: http://wellonline.uk/
I get lots of invitations to submit articles to predatory journals. I’d estimate I get around two to three such invitations a week. While those are sad, they don’t crush my spirit like this one did.
The part that got me in this email was this line, “Article writing: According to your research interests and expertise, we can arrange customized article writing projects.” Basically, whoever these people are, they are offering to just write academic articles for me.
Let me repeat that.
These scumbags are offering to straight up write articles for me.
Call me elitist. Call me arrogant. Call me whatever you want. But if you are in academia and can’t write your own fucking papers, you don’t belong in academia!
If you’re using a service like this…
If you’re publishing in predatory journals of any kind…
If you’re engaging in any form of academic fraud…
Fuck you!
You are destroying academia. You are destroying science. And you are undermining people’s confidence in what we do. I despise you.
