This section of the guide is designed to assist UK library patrons with:
- identifying journals in which to publish.
- choosing the correct journal to publish in.
- addressing Open Access journals pros and cons.
Tools to Help You Find Potential Journals
Article-Journal Matching Tools
- Elsevier Journal FinderElsevier Journal Finder helps you find journals that could be best suited for publishing your scientific article. Please also consult the journal’s Aims and Scope for further guidance.
- Enago Open Access Journal FinderEnter your abstract and find potential journals for your manuscript. The journals provided are listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals.
- JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator)Just enter the title and/or abstract of the paper in the box, and click on 'Find journals', 'Find authors' or 'Find Articles'. Jane will then compare your document to millions of documents in PubMed to find the best matching journals, authors or articles.
- JournalGuideJournalGuide is a free tool created to bring all sources of data together in one place to give authors a simple way to choose the best journal for their research.
- Springer Nature Journal SuggesterEnter your abstract, description of your research, or a sample text and the Springer Nature Journal Suggester provides a list of relevant journals. You can refine the results by Impact Factor, publishing model, or open access options.
- Edanz Journal SelectorEnter your abstract or article description into the Journal Selector to find journals that publish in related areas. Currently matching over 18,000 journals.
Databases
Using a database like PubMed, enter the title of your article into the search box and run the search. Look through the results to see if you can find similar articles and see where those articles were published.
- PubMed (University of Kentucky)Provides abstracts to articles in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, allied health, and the pre-clinical sciences. Includes biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Also includes links to articles available through UK Libraries' subscriptions.
- Web of Science: All DatabasesScientific and academic research, patent analytics and regulatory standards, pharmaceutical and biotech intelligence, trademark protection, domain brand protection, and intellectual property management services.
- CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) CompleteProvides indexing of the top nursing and allied health literature available, plus the full text for nearly 1,400 journals indexed in CINAHL
Now that you have learned how to located potential journals, the next step is to determine which specific journal to publish in. You will need to evaluate quality and availability.
Journal Ranking
It is important that you consider a journal's ranking in comparison to other journals since this can directly affect author impact. The higher the ranking, the more influential the journal.
- Journal Citation Reports (JCR)Journal Citation Reports is an authoritative resource for impact factor data. This database provides impact factors and rankings of many journals in the social and life sciences. JCR uses a 2 and 5 year calculation period.
- ScopusScopus uses Elsevier's CiteScore as a measure of journal impact. CiteScore uses a 3 year window to calculate impact.
Journal Acceptance Rate
Generally, journals with lower acceptance rate are considered more prestigious. Therefore, another decision making metric could be a journal's acceptance rate. Often you can find acceptance rate information on the journal information page or by contacting the editor directly.
Journal Availability
The more costly the journal the less distribution and, therefore, availability a journal will have. So if availability is a concern, consider publishing in an open access journal. The Directory of Open Access Journals is a great place to start searching for an open access title.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
- Which journals are used by you or mentors/colleagues?
- Consider reviewing where your colleagues and mentors have published. These journals may be highly recommended in your field and therefore would be a great place to start when considering your own publications. Other questions to ask yourself: Which journals do you use frequently to keep track of new developments in your field? Does your professional organization publish journals?
- Who is your desired audience?
- It is important to consider your desired audience. Does the scope and aim of the journal you are considering meet the needs of your desired audience? If not, maybe you should consider another journal. If the target audience is limited to a selective area of research, select a journal with a narrow focus as opposed to one with a multidisciplinary focus. More specialized journals, even with a potentially smaller readership, may offer a broader dissemination of your work to your peers in a specific area of research.
- Are you required to comply with public access mandates for sharing of publications and/or data?
- Was your research funded by an organization that requires researcher to comply with public access mandates for the sharing of published materials and/or the data created? Check the author's information page on the journal's website to ensure that the journal meets the public access requirements set by your funding organization. In addition, some journals offer repositories for data. This may be helpful if you are required to publish your data. You can always use a subject-specific repository for your data if this is not available.
- Do you need to publish in a peer-reviewed journal?
- Publication in peer-reviewed journals is a requirement for tenure and promotion at most academic institutions. It is therefore important that you evaluate the peer-review process of the journals to which you are considering submitting your article.
- Is an expedited review process desired?
- If you are looking for a quick turn around, consider a journal with a frequent (weekly or monthly) publication schedule. This information can be found on the journal's information page.
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Beckerguides: Selecting a Journal For Publication: Questions To Ask Before Selecting a Journal https://beckerguides.wustl.edu/c.php?g=648201&p=4545482