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Scholarly Publishing

Criteria to Consider

Now that you're able to locate potential journals in which to publish, the next step is to evaluate those journals for quality.

Here are three questions to ask yourself when considering a journal:

  • How does this journal rank in comparison to other journals?
  • What are the acceptance rates of this journal?
  • What is the availability of this journal?
  • What rights do you have as an author?

This page will provide you with resources to help answer all four of these questions.

Rank

Rank:It is important to determine how the journal you're considering ranks in comparison to other journals since this can directly affect author impact.

Remember, the higher the ranking, the more influential the journal. 

Listed belows are tools that can help determine a journal's ranking.

Google Scholar Metrics:   Google ranks journals based on 5-Index (5 year hindex) and h5-median.  Filters by broad subject area, e.g. Engineering and Computer Science and by language. 

Journal Citation Reports: An objective resource that will help to evaluate journals through citation data. Use this tool to determine which journals are the most influential in your subject area. Part of Web of Science

CiteScore Metrics: Powered by SCOPUS, CiteScore™ metrics are a new standard to help measure citation impact for journals, book series, conference proceedings and trade journals.They are comprehensive, transparent, current and free metrics to help analyze where research is published. CiteScore metrics help researchers :

  • Discover more titles in your discipline or other areas of interest. .
  • Publish your research in the right titles. Learn the rank, citeScore, and quartile of journals, book series, conference proceedings and trade journals.
  • Showcase the citation impact of your research. Use CiteScore to highlight the titles where your research is published, such as including values on your CV and in your grant proposals.

For more info., see their help page.

SCImago Journal & Country Rank:  A free portal with journal rankings by subject and country based on data from Scopus. Its ranks journals according to the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator, which calculates journal influence by looking at both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance of the journal where the citation was published. It also offers other metrics, such as the H index, citations per document, references per document, and more. Journals can be analyzed by broad subject area, narrow subject category, or by country. An alternative ranking metric to the impact factor.

 

Impact Factor - What is it?; Why use it?

The impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is used to measure the importance or rank of a journal by calculating the times it's articles are cited.

How Impact Factor is Calculated?

The calculation is based on a two-year period and involves dividing the number of times articles were cited by the number of articles that are citable.

Tools to Measure Journal Impact (Impact Factor)

  • You can use The Journal Citation Reports database below. ** Please note: JCR doesn't provide citation figures for journals indexed in the "Arts and Humanities Citation Index". It ONLY provided information for journals in the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Science Citation Index.
  • You can also check the journal's webpage as well. It should state it's impact factor in the about section or on the main page.

Peer reviewed, sometimes called refereed journals, are journals whose articles have gone through peer review.  This means that experts in the field will read articles before they are accepted for publication for accuracy, authority and originality (does this add to the body of knowledge or merely restate what is already known).

Peer review can be:

Double Blind: The names of the author(s) and reviewers are not disclosed to each other. 

Open: The names of the author(s) and reviewers are disclosed to each other. 

Post Publication: Articles are reviewed only for basic accuracy and that the results support the conclusion. The community passes judgment on the value of the article post publication through comment and discussion.

Single Blind: The reviewer's name is not disclosed to the author but the author's name is disclosed to the reviewer.

Acceptance Rate

Locating acceptance rates for individual journals or for specific disciplines can be difficult, yet is necessary information for promotion and tenure activities. Journals with lower article acceptance rates are frequently considered to be more prestigious and more “meritorious”.

The method of calculating acceptance rates varies among journals.  Some journals use all manuscripts received as a base for computing this rate.  Other journals allow the editor to choose which papers are sent to reviewers and calculate the acceptance rate on those that are reviewed that is less than the total manuscripts received. Also, many editors do not maintain accurate records on this data and provide only a rough estimate. 

Furthermore, the number of people associated with a particular area of specialization influences the acceptance rate. If only a few people can write papers in an area, it tends to increase the journal's acceptance rate. You will find a few useful tips and resources on finding journal acceptance rates below. 

 

  • Contact the editor of the journal to see if s/he will share the acceptance rate.
  • Journal's Website: Some societies will also publish acceptance rates for their journals on their home pages. A Google search using the name of the journal or the name of the society will usually take you to the journal home page.

 

  • MLA Directory of Periodicals: lists journals in literature, languages, and linguistics. Although the MLA Directory does not publish acceptance rates, it shows the annual number of articles submitted and published, and these numbers can be used to calculate the acceptance rate. For example, regarding the journal Hemingway Review, the MLA Directory states “Articles: Suggested Length: 6,250 words maximum; Number Submitted Per Year: 50-60; Published Per Year: 10-14.” Dividing the number of articles published by the number submitted yields an acceptance rate ranging from 17% (10/60) to 28% (14/50).

Author's Rights

An individual has rights to the intellectual or creative property they create.  As an author, you own the rights to your work from the moment that work takes on some fixed form, until or unless the rights are transferred to another entity. Traditional publishing contracts often assign copyright to the publisher, thus limiting how and where the work can be used and distributed in the future.

If this happens, authors may be restricted from incorporating this work into their teaching and research, posting it to a website, or in an Institutional repository or digital collection.  Make sure you know what the journal's policy is before you submit your manuscript. See the Author's Rights tab above for more information.

Journal Availability

Cost and distribution can influence the availability of a journal. In general, the more expensive the journal the less available it will be. Is it an open access journal? To learn more about open access, click on the Open Access tab above.

Also, check to see where the journal is indexed and how many places it is indexed.  The more places it's indexed, the higher the chance your article will be discovered.

This information should be posted on the journal's website.