Scholarly publishing

Selecting a journal

What should I consider when I select a journal?

There are several things to consider when you select a journal to publish your article:

• Subject area: The disciplinary and topical focus of the journal should align with your research.
• Audience: Consider whether your research is more specialized, or of interest to the field as a whole, or interdisciplinary.
• Methodology/article type: Find out the kind of research the journal publishes, qualitative, quantitative, theoretical, or empirical research or case studies, data papers, review articles.
• Turnaround time: Check the journal review period. Typically, you can only submit to one journal at a time.
• Funder policies: Check your funder requirements about where you publish and what the publisher will let you do with your article (such as deposit it in an open access repository).

How can I find a suitable journal to publish my work?

Important publishers have developed tools to help you find a suitable journal to publish your work. There are also some freely available tools on the web.

Check the tabbed box below to view the available tools.

How can I find a reputable journal/publisher?

Finding a great journal to publish your manuscript is not an easy process. Make sure that you take the time to do some basic checks on the quality and reputation of the journal and publisher. A reputable publisher/journal will:

• offer a straightforward submission process,
• provide guidelines about their charges,
• offer rigorous peer review, 
• cover effectively the technical parts of the publishing process, and
• make your outputs discoverable by other researchers by including them in bibliographic databases.

Watch the video below to understand how to think when you want you submit your work.

Should I check journal metrics to find a reputable journal?

To check the journal's traditional and fuzzy metrics is a good way to find reputable journals to publish your work.   

Are all publishers trustworthy?

Unfortunately, not! With the rise of the open access publishing there have been some publishers, commonly known as predatory publishers that exploit authors by charging publication fees and offering poor quality publishing services.

What is predatory publishing?

There is a generally accepted definition that appeared in Nature in the December 12, 2019 issue : "Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices."

How can I trust a publisher?

You can trust a publisher if it is a member of the following bodies:

• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)  : provides guideline on several topics like authorship, intellectual property, peer review processes, journal management and more issues related to publishing.
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA)  : a diverse community of organizations engaged in open scholarship with a mission to encourage and enable open access as the primary model of communication for scholarly outputs.

How can I recognize a predatory journal?

According to the same article on Nature, predatory journals have some characteristics in common. These can be the following:

• They provide wrong or misleading information. This refers to how to the publisher details like the  journal's website or e-mails, false impact factors, wrong addresses, misrepresentations of the editorial board, fake claims of indexing or membership of associations and misinformation about the peer review process.
• They deviate from best editorial and publication practices. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) , the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (COPE) , and the World Association of Medical Editors , have set the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing . These principles are easily obtained from legitimate journals.
• Their websites look unprofessional. A website with spelling or grammar mistakes, or irrelevant text should raise red flags.
• There is lack of transparency. This refers to operational procedures (such as how editorial decisions are made, fees applied and peer review organized). 
• They request for submissions by using aggressive and indiscriminate ways. Although legitimate journals might request submissions, predatory journals often do this aggressively by using repeated e-mails. These might be very flattering in tone, or might mention researchers' past publications while noting that related submissions are urgently needed for a forthcoming issue.  However these calls seem to ignore the invitee's expertise.