Whether you’re embarking on a publishing project soon or have already started writing your manuscript, it’s good to think about which journals you might submit to as early as possible. Even if you know some of the important journals in your field, it’s good to have backup options in case your manuscript isn’t accepted into your top-choice journal or if your research is multi-disciplinary in scope. Luckily, there are many tools and resources available to help identify journals that could be a good fit for disseminating your research.
Journal matching tools are helpful for providing quick recommendations. These tools find relevant matches based upon the title and abstract of your paper or keywords that describe your topic. The Journal Author Name Estimator compares your query to content published in MEDLINE journals, PubMed Central, and the Directory of Open Access Journals. There are also publisher-specific tools from Elsevier or Taylor and Francis that match your content to their own journals.
Journal metrics can be another method for discovering important journals for your paper. While these metrics weren’t created to assess journal quality, they can be an indication of a well-read and well-cited journal. Some journal metrics were designed to compare journals within the same subject field, and others are field normalized to allow for comparison across all subject disciplines. Our Bibliometrics Guide introduces a few common journal indicators, how they’re calculated, and where you can find them.
If you’re considering a journal that you haven’t published with before or haven’t heard about, take some time to assess the journal before submitting your manuscript. Check that they have a peer review process, the databases that their articles appear in, and what policies they have for handling research misconduct. Think. Check. Submit. is a great checklist to help you thoroughly evaluate a journal to ensure that it is legitimate and trustworthy.
These are only a few things to think about when publishing. Are you also interested in increasing your research visibility through publishing open access and sharing your other research outputs? Need help using a citation manager to format the citations in your manuscript? Librarians at HSLS are ready to help with many of your publishing needs. Check out our Scholarly Publishing webpage to learn more about our support services and how to get in touch.
~Stephen Gabrielson