From the idea to the proposal, the grant application, the lab bench work, field/clinical work, collaboration, and writing your notes, your scientific research has traveled a long road to get to your destination: getting published. Dissemination of your findings and ideas to your colleagues and the public is your crucial end goal.
Choose the journal BEFORE writing the manuscript. Your choice will help you to tailor the manuscript to the scope and audience of the journal, as well as journal requirements of formatting, space limitations, allowed abbreviations, etc. Knowing the rules ahead of time will save you time and work, and improve the likelihood that your work will be selected for peer review and publication.
How do you choose which journal is best to publish your research?
We have a few ideas and tips to help you in your publication path. Read on.
First, there are two easy-to-use online resources to help you decide which journal would be most pertinent to your research. The JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator) and the Cofactor Science Journal selector.
JANE compares your document to Medline documents to find the best match. You can use your abstract or keywords to search JANE. More info on JANE can be found here: http://jane.biosemantics.org/ and FAQ here: http://www.biosemantics.org/jane/faq.php.
The journal selector at http://cofactorscience.com/journal-selector asks for five criteria and will search the journal possibilities for you that fit those criteria.
You may also want to look at Google Scholar Metrics, which indexes the top journals in the sciences, humanities, mathematics, and tech with citation h-indexes. Listings are for English publications as well as publications in other languages.
If you are still unsure of whether a journal is right for your findings, email the managing editor found on the “About” section of the journal’s website prior to your submission. Sending your abstract with an appropriate title will help the editor decide whether your paper is suitable for their journal (if they respond favorably, be sure to mention this in your cover letter).
There are other important factors to consider before deciding on your top three choices of journals, which should guide your selection:
1. Audience and Journal Scope
2. Journal Requirements
3. Language
4. Review Process
5. Time Frame for Acceptance
6. Acceptance-Rejection Rate
7. Online and Print Publication Time Frames
8. Journal Impact Factor
9. Open or Closed Access
10. Promotion & Sharing
11. Cost
1. AUDIENCE and JOURNAL SCOPE:
The Audience:
Who is your target audience?
• Is your research for a general or specific audience? Who will be most interested in your results?
• Can your findings be clinically applied or are they theoretical?
• Are your findings specific to your field or are they broadly applicable?
• Are you introducing a new technique that may be useful to most scientists or to specific fields?
The Journal:
Is the journal general to a discipline or specific to a particular sub-discipline? Aside from multi-discipline journals such as Nature, Science, and PLOS ONE, generalist journals of a single discipline have a large audience and are highly prestigious. Niche journals are less widely read and not as prestigious because of the smaller audience.
How many copies of the journal are sold? Over 2500 top university libraries around the world generally subscribe to a multitude of journals; therefore, if your selected journal sells this many copies or more, the opportunity for your work to be seen and cited is much improved. Additionally, circulation that reaches a lay audience is important for publicizing your work.
How long has the journal been published and does it publish regularly? Beware of new journals that are similar in name to established journals as they may not be respectable, and may be predatory. It is unfortunate that Beall’s list of possible predatory journals is no longer published, but it can still be found in the web archives here.
2. JOURNAL REQUIREMENTS:
Practical considerations are important in considering the best journal for your work. Article length, allowed numbers of figures, references, etc., vary by journal.
Be sure to read the journal’s Instructions to Authors/Guide for Authors to determine the limitations of the journal and whether your work will fit within those parameters. Some journals are stricter than others regarding their policies (particularly regarding article or section length). If in doubt, query the editor or check a recently published issue. Thoroughly review their policies before submission.
Examples of author guides and publication instructions can be found here:
3. LANGUAGE:
Although the dominant language of science is English, there are journals in other languages that may be more pertinent to your findings and your intended audience.
SciTechEdit International is a leader in the field of translation of science documents to English from a wide variety of languages and offer our services to you should you need translations and/or editing of your manuscripts for publication in English-language science journals.
4. REVIEW PROCESS:
It is important to know if the journal uses a Single-, Double-, or Triple-Blind, or Open review process. In a Triple-Blind review, the editor and two or more reviewers are unaware of your identity and the reviews are anonymous. In a Double-Blind review, the editor knows your identity but the reviewers do not. In a Single-Blind review, the reviewers also know who you are. In an Open Review, you know who the reviewers are and they know who you are. Open Review offers a greater degree of transparency for the author and honesty by the reviewers.
5. TIME FRAME FOR ACCEPTANCE:
The shorter the better for the time your paper reaches the journal and an editor replies with a decision. A long delay may mean that the journal is inefficiently run, has a weak reputation, or has difficulty securing expert reviewers. Conversely, a fast timeline may mean that the journal does not have enough quality submissions.
6. ACCEPTANCE-REJECTION RATE:
What is the percentage of submitted manuscripts that are published by the journal? While this should not be your deciding factor, it is an important consideration.
Medium acceptance/rejection rates are best for authors; journals with high rejection/low acceptance rates can increase the time and effort spent getting your article published, while high acceptance/low rejection rates can signify a new journal, or an unknown, risky, or desperate journal that will accept less than stellar submissions.
Note: If you want your findings published in top-tier journals, such as Science, Nature, NEJM, PNAS, and JACS, you must ensure that your manuscript strictly adheres to the journal scope and guidelines – SciTechEdit International can help to ensure that your manuscript conforms to the journal’s requirements.
7. ONLINE AND PRINT PUBLICATION:
What is the timeline from acceptance to online publication? Does the journal publish online continuously or wait to group papers into issues? What is the time frame for online publication to print? Will you receive a definite publishing date so that your promotional efforts do not run into embargo problems?
8. JOURNAL IMPACT FACTOR (JIF):
The theory of impact factor indicates how important that journal is to its scientific or academic field, but the value of the impact factor is controversial and should not be the sole deciding component for submitting your paper to a specific journal. Simply put, impact factor is citation count. There are multiple aspects to choosing a journal, impact factor being only one. Promotion and tenure decisions, however, especially in Japan and Europe, may give more weight to impact factor.
Other journal impact factor rankings are issued by PageRank and Eigenfactor.
9. OPEN OR CLOSED ACCESS:
High prestige journals are generally behind pay walls that restrict access without an expensive subscription. Open Access journals are open to all and have a much higher readership. However, most Open Access journals charge Author Processing Fees or place an embargo on publication.
Generally speaking, Open Access journals offer greater accessibility and dissemination to a broader audience, with a 47% increased probability of being referenced in Wikipedia vs. pay wall journals. See the article by Teplitskiy et al (J. Assoc. Information Sci Tech, 2016) for more details.
10. PROMOTION AND SHARING:
Publication of your manuscript is not the end of promoting your work. Promoting the published manuscript is important for increasing your presence and visibility in the scientific community, and to the media. With thousands of articles published daily, you must promote your research to the larger audience, thereby increasing your stature. Social media sharing, especially Twitter with its large science audience, is valuable to catch the eye of science journalists in major mainstream publications who may want to pursue an article featuring your research. Writing about your work on your personal blog is another way to gain visibility to the scientific community and the community at large.
Elsevier and other journal publishers have guidelines for sharing your research article, and encourage authors to do so. Click here to access their article on sharing and promoting your article.
11. COST:
Publishing costs for journals vary and can be high. Costs can range from a few hundred dollars for Open Access digital publishing to approximately $4000 for print. These costs are borne by the researchers, though sometimes the author’s university or institution will cover the cost of publishing. Be sure to inquire about publishing fees if this is an issue for you.
WE AT SCITECHEDIT INTERNATIONAL HOPE THIS GUIDE WILL BE OF HELP TO YOU IN DETERMINING WHICH SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL IS THE BEST FIT FOR YOU AND YOUR RESEARCH FINDINGS.
We’d like to emphasize that whichever journal you choose for submission, be sure to first read the journal’s specific guidelines for submission as they can vary widely from journal to journal. Choose your journal BEFORE you write your findings, as this will save you enormous time and effort spent in re-writing, reformatting, and re-submitting your manuscripts to your second and third journal choices.
As always, SciTechEdit International is here to help you polish your scientific documents and help you to communicate your findings clearly. We are proud of our work in gaining a 94% publication rate for our clients, and we welcome you to contact us and learn more about how we can help you get published too.
Contact us at [email protected] with your queries.
