Choosing the right journal for your paper:
A flowchart and tips
Caryn Jones
ThinkSCIENCE, Inc. | Publishing

When we want to submit a
research paper for publication, thetop-tier journals in our specialist
field are usually the first that cometo mind. However, these journals
might not always fit our publication
goals or the content of our latest
paper. We all know that submitting
a manuscript to an unsuitablejournal can mean our manuscript is rejected before peer review. So,
how can we make a final suitable choice for our particular paper as
quickly and easily as possible?
In this article, we offer a systematic approach for authors to follow, andwe've summarized the factors to consider in a flowchart.
Download a checklist for choosing the right journal

Whether you decide which journal you will submit to (often called the "targetjournal") before, during, or after writing your paper, there are many factors toconsider in your decision. The process can be time-consuming if the journals
familiar to you won't meet your publication needs this time. Taking a systematic
approach can help to narrow down the list of suitable choices and reach a final
decision quickly.
Also, because your publication needs can differ from one paper to the next (e.g.,this time you want fast publication, have a tight budget to cover publication fees,
and are targeting readers across different disciplines), it's helpful to systematically
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weigh up and consider the many factors involved, so you can be sure to make thebest choice each time.

Shortlisting suitable journals
When you want to find journals in your field, there are a number of ways to search.
For example:••

In journals that you read regularly in your field, check journal names thatappear in the reference sections of published papers that are related to yourwork.
Use online tools to identify potential journals. Enter different key words that
describe your research, highlight the most suitable journals in the search
results, and then check the journals' websites for detailed information. Forexample, you could use the comprehensive Master Journal List (free) or the
more targeted Journal/Author Name Estimator that searches biomedical
journals (free).

A systematic approach to choosing the right journalWork through the four-step approach below, answering the questions listed foreach factor to help you decide the right journal for your particular paper. Note thatthe first two steps are specific to you, and not to the journal — if you're not clear
what you your publications goals are, then you're not yet ready to choose among
journals.
Just a quick caveat: We consider only the general case here. You should keep inmind your actual publication needs at the specific time. Some of the factors will be
more important than others for certain submissions. Also, many answers areinterrelated. So, you will always need to take an overview of your answers to reacha decision.

Step 1. Write out your take-home message
Your take-home message is your key message that you want your readers toremember about your research. It is the focus of your paper's arguments andclaims. It should be no more than 3 sentences long.
Your take-home message will help you determine who your ideal audience will be,
and thus which journal is best to reach this audience.

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Whether you're about to start writing your paper (this is the ideal situation) or
you've already written it, you might want to write out your take-home message andkeep it visible to help you stay focused as you work through the following steps.

Step 2. Decide your specific publication goals
Which audience do you want to reach? Check your take-home message and write
down who would really benefit from knowing your research findings; in other words,write down who your ideal audience is.
••

Which audience would benefit from reading your work?
oA general audience (i.e., those reading a transdisciplinary journal, suchas Science or Nature)?

o

A more specialist, multidisciplinary audience (e.g., New England Journalof Medicine and Journal of the American Chemical Society)?

oA single discipline audience (e.g., Topology)?

oA highly specialized audience in a subfield of a single discipline (e.g.,Journal of Knot Theory and Its Ramifications)?

Would an international, regional, or national audience be the best fit?
oAn international audience is not always the best target for yourmessage. Maybe a regional or domestic audience would find yourmessage more valuable, especially when geographical or cultural
factors are involved in the research.

oLanguage: Do you need translation to reach a key audience? Do you
need language support to write a paper in English? Can you get that
support, and do you have funds available to pay if you can't get it free ofcharge?

oRelated to the next question about access: If your target audience
includes authors from less affluent countries, open access publishing
can be a good option because it will be free for readers to access yourpublished article. Open access publications can reach wider audiences –but how wide an audience do you actually need?

Do you want open or closed access to your published paper?
For brevity, only the main characteristics are stated; variations exist within eachtype.
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Open access: Readers (and their institutions) pay nothing to read the paper. The
author may pay an article processing charge (APC).
Closed access: The author does not pay to publish because the publication fee iscovered, either by academic society membership fees or by individuals/institutions
paying for reading access.
Some funding bodies who award research grants stipulate that the resulting
research papers must be published in open access journals only. If your funding
body does not stipulate open access, then you must decide whether to target ajournal with open or closed access (or a hybrid journal which offers both types ofaccess). Debate continues over whether open access actually achieves higher
citations (see, for example, here and here), and the prestigious journals of many
academic societies have closed access, where articles are published behind a paywall.
•••

Does your funding body (if you have one) stipulate open access publications?
Do you have enough research funds to pay the APC if you want open access?
Does the audience you want to reach tend to read closed or open access?

Do you need quick publication?
You might want a quick publication if you think your results are valuable to thecommunity and warrant quick dissemination, or you might need a publication
quickly for career/employment purposes. Some journals have fewer submittedpapers than others and may be able to publish accepted articles more quickly, andsome popular journals have a fast-track route for important papers warranting
rapid publication. If you want a quicker publication, then some regional and national
journals don't have as many submitted papers waiting to be reviewed asinternational journals do—if the journal editor thinks your paper is a good match forthe journal, your work might enter peer review more quickly than at international
journals and, if accepted, it could enter the publication queue more quickly.
•••

Does the journal fast track submissions for original articles?
If the journal you prefer doesn't accept fast-track original articles, does it
accept short/brief communications? Would it be a good choice to write upyour research as a short/brief communication?
Does the journal's website give the average time from manuscript receipt tofirst decision (reject or enter peer review), time until final decision, and thentime to publication? Or can you see from scanning published papers what theaverage times might be from "Received", "Accepted", and "Published" dates,
which indicate the time taken for peer review and publication?
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Page 4 of 8•How many issues does the journal publish each year? Does the journal
publish regularly, when planned? Does it publish continuously online?

Step 3. Check journal’s scope, setup, reputation, and impact
Now that your message, target audience, and publication goals are clear, you needto check whether your shortlisted journals can help you achieve these goals. If they
can't, then you need to find other journals that can meet your goals (but at least
now you can search for new journals using your key terms and terms describing
your audience type, article type, and choice on open access).
Does your paper meet the journal's requirements?
•••

Does your paper meet the journal's aims and scope? Check this aspect firston the journal's website. If your research doesn't fall under the journal's
stated aims and scope, you'll be wasting time submitting your paper.
Does the journal publish the article type that you want to write? Can yourpaper meet the word, citation, and figure and table limits in the guidelines forauthors?
Can you meet the ethical requirements of the journal (regarding authorship,consent, ethics committee approval, data availability, etc.)?

What type of peer review system is used?
Certain types of peer review are more common in some disciplines than others. The
main types of peer review are:Blind review (single blind): The authors' names are disclosed to the reviewers, but
the reviewers' names are not disclosed to the authors.
Double-blind review: The authors' and reviewers' names are not disclosed to eachother.
Open review: The authors' and reviewers' names are disclosed to each other. In
some cases, the reviews and author responses may be published alongside thepaper. (Some journals offer open post-publication review.)•Does the journal offer the type of peer review you are comfortable with and iscommon in your research field?

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Page 5 of 8•••Does the average time taken for peer review (from receipt to acceptance)
seem reasonable to you: not too fast (suggesting that peer review is notsufficiently rigorous) and not too long (suggesting you will have a long wait
until your work is available to readers)?
Are there usually 2 or more reviewers?
Does the journal offer cascade peer review, where if the journal rejects yourpaper, it offers to pass on your paper and the accompanying reviews toanother journal (usually within the same publisher's portfolio)?

Is the journal reputable and legitimate?
Concern continues in the academic publishing world about so-called predatory
journals, which exploit authors by charging them APCs without providing theservices offered by legitimate publishers.
We have written about how to identify predatory journals before and our advice
stands. Also, check the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker to be sure you
are not unwittingly submitting to a “hijacked” (illegitimately copied) journal. We
suggest you read our previous article on predatory journals for full details, as wellas consider the following questions.
••
••••
•••

How transparent are the journal’s procedures and policies (e.g., aboutpayments, publication ethics, copyright)?
Is it clear whether you would have to pay an APC to publish? If so, how muchis the charge?
Does the editorial board have recognizable and reputable members listed,with their affiliations? Do those members list the journal on their affiliations’
websites? Is there diversity of membership?
If you search for the journal name online, do you find many negative
comments about it?
Does the journal publish manuscripts free from typographical, grammatical,
and other obvious errors? Are copyediting services offered to polish the text
before publication?
Does the journal offer indexing services? What other services does thejournal offer the author?
Are there clear ways to contact the journal by telephone, email, and post?
What international publishing organizations does the journal belong to?
How old is the journal? Of course, new legitimate journals are being created
all the time, but as with everything without a history to check, careful
evaluation is important.

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Page 6 of 8•Does the journal have a reputable publisher? Are the publisher details easilyfound?

What is the journal’s impact?
•••••

Do you need to consider the journal’s impact factor?
The impact factor of a journal is not a perfect metricand has many critics, but it is likely to remain in use forthe foreseeable future. Many journals with a highimpact factor have a high rejection rate because of thefierce competition to publish in them. Unless you needa high impact factor publication for a particularreason, then impact factor does not need to be a highpriority consideration. In fact, some highly specialized,
reputable journals have a low impact factor precisely
because there are not many researchers working andpublishing in the field, so citations to its publishedpapers are naturally fewer.
How does the journal rank in terms of h-index score in
Google Scholar Metrics?
Does the journal show impact in other ways? Forexample, does it show a paper’s social media impact(altmetrics)? The publisher Wiley explains its
altmetrics score using the example shown to theright. The published paper has an altmetrics score of18. Clicking on the score button shows where thearticle has been mentioned so far.
How well established is the journal? An older journal
will probably have a more dedicated readership than anewer journal, although not necessarily a large
readership: a highly specialized journal may be wellestablished but still have a small readership.
Does the journal state the size of its audience? For example, the New
England Journal of Medicine states:
How many readers does the Journal have?
The Journal has the largest paid circulation among medical
journals, with almost 200,000 paying subscribers. It is printed
simultaneously each week in the United States, Canada, theNetherlands, and Japan, and a selection of translated articles
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reaches approximately 140,000 physicians in China through theChina Medical Tribune.
Online, the Journal reaches between 300,000 and 400,000
readers each week; the Journal is also provided online at nocharge in approximately 120 economically disadvantagedcountries.
Studies published in the Journal receive extensive coverage in thenews media worldwide, reaching millions of additional health care
professionals and patients each week.

Step 4. Decide which journal best meets your requirements
Now it's time to weigh up your answers to the questions above to rank yourshortlisted journals and choose the journal that best meets your publication needs.
••

If you have time, quickly scan the last few issues of each journal (and anysupplement issues) to see whether papers similar to yours have been
published recently, which might mean yours would not be considered novel
enough for that journal. However, in the opposite vein, your findings might
connect well with a recently published paper and you could include
discussion of this in your paper.
If you happen to get rejected by your first choice of journal, you'll have yourshortlist ready for a quick submission to the next most suitable journal.

Summary
We hope that this article helps you set your priorities for publication and decide
your target journal smoothly and quickly.
We often help authors to select the right journal for their paper—researching andshortlisting suitable journals and explaining the difference between the choices—
so they can make the best decision for their particular paper. Please let us know if
we can assist you in choosing the right journal (or even the right conference).

Read the article online for the most recent version

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