The second step during journal evaluation must be an analysis of the journal’s content, one focused mainly on its professional quality rather than on bad grammar or spelling as commonly associated with untrustworthy journals. Many authors have published in untrustworthy journals because they did not assess its professional quality, despite the fact that they can use one of the following tools for examining the quality of text processing besides their professional knowledge.

For example, the Joanna Briggs Institute created critical appraisal tools for various types of studies with questions checking comprehensibility, attention to detail, objectivity, and verifiability of the research results. Each of these questions is also complemented with an explanation of what specifically the question is aiming at in the article.

Similar aid is provided by checklists from the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme containing questions about the clarity of aims and results of the research, the suitability of the chosen research method and the gathering of results, as well as compliance with ethical principles of research. These checklists help authors to assess the quality of the content of randomly chosen articles not only based on their specialization but also with the help of a standardized method. In this way authors can get an idea about the quality of editorial work and the journal’s requirements for the professional quality of the published articles.