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Scholarly Publishing

About This Guide

Choosing the right publication venue is a critical step in effectively disseminating your research and enhancing its impact. This guide is designed to empower researchers by providing essential resources, practical tools, and key insights. With it, you will be better equipped to identify high-quality journals, navigate the options for open access publishing, and confidently protect your scholarly work by recognising and avoiding predatory practices.

Selecting the Right Journal for Publication

Choosing a journal that is a great fit for your research and supports your career goals is incredibly important. May (2022) offers key considerations and insights to empower researchers in making this crucial decision.

Key Considerations:

  • Journal Ranking: While important for career progression, it shouldn't be the sole determinant.
  • Career Stage and Goals: Your individual career stage and specific goals (e.g., reaching a niche community vs. aiming for a high-impact journal) should guide your selection.
  • Personal Reading Habits: Journals that you frequently read and find valuable for your own research are often good candidates for your work.
  • Journal Guidelines: Always meticulously review a journal's aims, scope, and author guidelines to ensure your manuscript is a good fit. Failure to do so can lead to a desk rejection.
  • Special Issues: Keep an eye out for special issues relevant to your research topic. Submitting to a well-aligned special issue can increase your chances of acceptance. Follow journals on social media or subscribe to relevant listservs for announcements.
  • Tailor Your Manuscript: Prepare your article with specific journals in mind.
  • Consult Your Network: Discuss your journal choices with colleagues, mentors, and your research team. This is a critical, yet often overlooked, step in the selection process.

Tools for Finding a Suitable Journal

Web of Science Manuscript Matcher

This tool analyses your manuscript's title, abstract, and references to match your work with journals indexed in the Web of Science. For optimal results, your title should have at least 10 words and your abstract at least 100 words.

Journal/Article Name Estimator (JANE)

By inputting the title and/or abstract of your manuscript, JANE compares your text to articles in PubMed/MEDLINE. It suggests journals in biomedical and life sciences that have published similar content.

Publishers’ Journal Finders

Some publishers offer their own journal finder tools to help researchers. These tools typically analyse your paper's title, abstract, and keywords to suggest journals within their portfolio that align with your work's subject matter and scope. Examples include:

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

An extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world. You can browse by subject to identify journals in your discipline.

Journal Rankings

Using these tools to check journal ranking in a specific subject category help you identify reputable and influential journals in a particular field.