Selecting a Journal
Try searching for the topic of your article in a relevant database to see where related articles in your field have been published.
In addition, you may also consider using the following tools to find journals in your subject area:
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A resource that will help to determine influential individuals, institutions, papers, publications, and countries in your subject area.
This link opens in a new windowAn 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.
This link opens in a new windowProvides access to the most up-to-date and accurate bibliographic information as well as current pricing structures for nearly 250,000 U.S. and international serial titles, including newspapers.
This link opens in a new windowLists periodicals in the areas of literature, language, linguistics, and folklore that are covered regularly in the MLA International Bibliography. Provides addresses, advertising rates, and information about submissions for publication.
Journal suggestion tools: All of these tools allow you to input information such as an abstract, a title or keywords and will return a list of journals that publish articles on those topics. All of these are on the open web—there is no login and can be accessed from anywhere.
Predatory Publishers
Predatory publishing is a term for low quality or scam publications. They prey on scholars using many of the same techniques as phishing scams, e.g. email blasts with plausible stories. These publishers often approach scholars through email inviting submissions without mentioning publishing fees. Predatory publishers are characterized by the following deceptive practices:
A coalition of scholarly publishers and associations collaborated to create this short checklist for authors to refer to when evaluating a journal as a possible place of publication for his research. By asking a few short questions and evaluating the journal according to the checklist, authors can be assured that the journal they are considering, whether subscription based or open access, will be one of quality, rigor, and respect.
Think: Ask yourself, can you trust this journal with your research? Does the journal publish research you would read yourself?
Check: Is the organization or publisher of the journal identifiable? Can you contact them easily?
For journals with publication fees (color charges, Open Access) - are the fees clearly listed on the publisher's website? Reputable publishers should list their fees clearly and publicly.
Do you know the names or reputations of any of the editorial board members?
Are the articles indexed in services you use within your subject area?
Submit: If you can answer yes to these questions, then submit!
Additional Tools:
Vanity publishers are publishers that will charge the author a fee for publishing a book. Generally these publishers do not have any interest in promoting and selling the book. Vanity publishers do not get their money from selling the book, but rather from selling the book production services to the author.
Vanity publishers often target early career researchers who are seeking publishing opportunities or may offer to publish their thesis.
Vanity publishing usually:
does not undergo peer review or proofreading to the same level of rigor as scholarly publications
can require the author to pay for a publication fee
Note that research publications published by a vanity publisher may not be eligible for HERDC/ERA reporting.
For an excellent account of an experience with a vanity publisher, see "I Sold My Undergraduate Thesis to a Print Content Farm" by Joseph Stromberg.
Predatory Conferences
Just as the the problem of predatory journals continues to grow at an alarming rate, so does the number of predatory conferences. Ultimately, to avoid becoming a victim, make sure you properly evaluate any conference you are unfamiliar with. The following article provides some criteria for identifying predatory conferences that may be helpful in your evaluation.
The content of this guide is from the Scholarly Publishing Guide from the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Library, Research Impact Metrics from University of Michigan and from the Getting Published guide from Arizonia State University.