A useful starting point to choosing a journal can be to identify a short list of the journals that may be suitable. There are a variety of sources of information to help you with making your short list.
If you use reference management software such as RefWorks or EndNote and you have a database of the articles of interest to you, this may help you to easily identify the journals that published the articles.
♦ Some of the library databases include a list of the journals they cover which can then be sorted by subject. For example in the Proquest databases there is ‘Publications’ menu
♦ The Directory of Open Access Journals can be used to find open access journals in many subject areas. It has a ‘by subject’ section – once you have selected a subject, you need to limit the results to journal.
♦ The database journal citation reports provides lists of journals in broad subject categories (it covers the journals indexed in Web of Science)
♦ There are also subject specific directories of journals. For example, in the Health disciplines there is the NLM catalog : journals referenced in the NCBI Databases
♦ Google Scholar Metrics has lists of journals in subject categories. However, they are quite broad areas. |
Some databases have features which can help you with this process. For example, in Scopus, the ‘Analyze search results’ feature can be used to show you a list of the journals that the articles in your search were published in, sorted by how many of the articles come from each journal.
If you have an EndNote online account, the “Match” option helps you to find possible journals using a system called Manuscript Matcher. It recommends journals based on the articles in your database. This short video shows you how manuscript matcher works.
Once you have a shortlist of possible journals you should consider each journal in more detail ; thinking about the scope, reach, discoverability, prestige, trustworthiness, etc.