Researcher Essentials

The main things to consider when choosing a journal to publish in are:

• quality
• credibility
• visibility
• relevance.

Quality

Quality refers to whether a journal has a reputation for publishing high quality material and is well respected in your discipline. It can be determined by checking:

• journal quartile, impact factor, or other metrics (see Finding journal quartiles and ranking)
• whether the journal is peer-reviewed
• whether experts in your field publish in the journal.

Some disciplines may not be well represented by journal metrics. In this case you may want to refer to a discipline-specific journal ranking list to determine a journal's quality. An example of a discipline-specific rankings list is the Australian Business Dean's Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List. 

Credibility

Involves examining the legitimacy of the journal. Evaluate:

• the editorial board members (are they experts in your field?)
• policies relating to: authorship, copyright, peer review, publishing fees, dispute resolution processes (are they clearly outlined?)
• the journal's website (is it professional, does the publisher have a real address?)
• time between submission to publication (a short time can be indicative of questionable publishing practices, but not always).

This information should be clearly stated on the Journal's website. Look for sections or pages labelled:

• Information for authors/Authors
• About 
• Editorial team
• Policies.

You can also use the checklist provided by Think Check Submit to guide you through this stage. 

Visibility

In this stage, determine how accessible a particular journal is. Evaluate:

• which databases is the journal discoverable in?
• is the journal open access?

Use Ulrichsweb to determine whether a journal is peer-reviewed and whether it is indexed by well know citation and discipline-specific databases.

To determine if a journal is open access search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Search by journal title, ISSN, subject, publisher, or country of publication. DOAJ also includes information about a journal's:

• open access publishing fees
• Creative Commons Licence that can be applied to the work
• copyright and publishing rights retained by the author
• links to the journal aims and scope and instructions for authors
• time from submission to publication
• where the articles are indexed. 

Relevance

Evaluate whether your research is relevant to the aims and scope of the journal. You can use article matching tools to help:

• Elsevier Journal Finder
  • match by your draft abstract or keywords
• Web of Science: Match my manuscript
  • you will need to create a free account to access this tool
  • match your article by abstract
• B!SON
  • match your abstract or keywords
  • open access journals only
• JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator)
  • match your abstract or title
  • for research in the health sciences (relies on PubMed data).

The benefit of tools from Web of Science and Elsevier is that they will also provide information including the impact factor, time to acceptance, acceptance rate, and whether the journal is open access.

It is also important to consider whether the journal you want to publish in accepts the type of article that you are writing.

A note on preprints: While most publishers welcome the submission of manuscripts that have been published as preprints, some do not. Check the journal's website or Open Policy Finder. 

1. Create a long list of journals
   1. Check your EndNote library or recent publication to see which journals you consistently cite
   2. Note where your colleagues/supervisors publish
2. Identify journals relevant to the topic of your research and type of article you are writing
   1. Use a journal matching tool or review the information about the journal's scope and accepted article types on their website
3. Identify the impact factor or reputation of the journals
   1. Use tools including Scimago, Scopus and Web of Science (see Finding journal quartile or ranking)
4. Check where the journals are indexed
   1. Use Ulrichsweb to check which journals are available in reputable citation or discipline databases
5. Check if the journal is open access
   1. Use DOAJ to see if the journal is open access
   2. If it is open access, check that it is covered by the Library's R&P agreements
   3. If the journal is not open access, check the self-archiving policy using Open Policy Finder and the journal's website.
6. Check the journal's editorial board and policies
   1. Make sure you are aware of policies relating to peer review, publishing fees, preprint policies, open access, use of AI, copyright, and rights retention.