This blog post is a synthesis of a recorded version of a webinar by “American Journal Experts” launched on June 28, 2018. I have included tips that might be useful to everyone looking to publish their major research projects or side projects.
- Make a list of target journals that have published articles similar to the one you are looking to publish. This will help you in future to save time searching target journals. Prioritize them based on your need and quality of papers.
- Some search options are PubMed (biomedical researches), Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE), Google Scholar, Journal Guide to search journals of the preference.
- Limit search to last five years publication records. Also, look for recent articles. Note the name of publishers to avoid questionable publishers and new options available. Save searches, create alerts.
- A good number of search results is 100-300 journal lists. If the total search list is below 30 expand the search criteria and if above 300, the narrow down the search criteria. Make a list of top journals and make top interest journals.
- Start collecting information about journals, ISSN Numbers, publisher/affiliated societies, contact information, aims and scope of journals, publication frequency, and other relevant information.
- Also, look for acceptance rate, the speed of publication process, costs (page and publication fees, color images fees etc.), open access policies, sharing options (full/partial open access).
- Talk with labmates, professors, post-docs and collaborators about journals.
- Seek online resources: Universities, academic websites, google searches. Some websites with the discussion board are AuthorAID, Reddit Academia, Academia Stack Exchange.
- Prevent Predatory journals. Some potential signs are single publisher launching a huge number of journals all at one time without much content, issues are late or skipped (Big Indicator!!!), different country affiliation and location of the journal (eg. affiliation in the USA but working in Asia), errors in title and abstracts, editorial board “coming soon” notice.
- Journal Matrics: Journal Impact Factor (Clarivate Analytics) average measure of citations per published articles, SNIP (Scopus/Elsevier) citation metrics normalized for citation habits in the journals field, Eigenfactor measures total impact of articles in a journal (estimate how frequently journal is accessed), and h-index Access overall productivity combined with impact on a yearly basis.
- Do not rely on new Journal Matrics especially if you don’t know how the matrics were calculated or not explained on the website of the journal how that matric is calculated. Go to Clarivate Analytics Journal Master List, SCOPUS journal title list, PubMed/MEDLINE to verify impact factors and journal lists.
- A multidisciplinary journal such as One Plus and Open Access Journals are good if you wanna reach a broad audience and more citation. Remember! Audiences are broad and not very specific which requires explanation in details.
- Mega journal (Eg. Plus One) looks for more science than the glamorous of your paper. This focus on good research, not necessarily the research is interesting. It is a fast and easy route to publish if the research is sound.
- Shape a good cover letter, good grammar, sound writing.
- Chose a journal before writing a paper would be helpful.
- American Journal Experts has their Journal Recommendation tools. USE IT!!!
- Here is the link to the webinar, if you want to watch it as well.
