Choosing the right journal for your research

Consider the following when choosing a journal

• Create a list of journals you are familiar with in your research, there is a good chance these journals may be a good fit for you
• Develop a search strategy related to your research and discover what journals return in tools such as QuickSearch, Google Scholar or discipline specific databases.
• Does your research funding have any conditions attached to publishing, e.g. publishing open access in a particular timeframe?

Ask the following questions of colleagues to see if they may have suggested journals to publish with:

• What journals do they read regularly?
• Which journals in the field do they think are well respected?
• For those who have published, what was their experience with particular journals?
• Do they have any recommendations about specific journals to consider?

Beyond personal research and discussions, you may also wish to look at the following journal suggester tools:

JournalGuide.com

JournalGuide is a free tool that helps researchers to evaluate scholarly journals. In addition to searching by journal name, category or publisher, authors can use the title and abstract of a paper to discover journals that have already published articles on similar topics. By matching journals to a paper’s content, researchers can see which journals would be most likely to have interest in their story.

EndNote Manuscript Matcher

EndNote's journal matching feature suggests the top candidates for your manuscript. Just choose the publications you want, and start the process for submitting your work to the most credible, high-quality journals that match your topic and references.

Conferences provide an audience to provide feedback on your research, which may be used to revise and submit your paper for publication. In some disciplines, conferences are the expected way of publicising new research. Conference presentations may be in the form of a paper, a poster, or a lightning (brief) talk. In some disciplines, conference papers are highly regarded and are an important means of scholarly communication.

• Is your research relevant to the journal's audience?
• Is your manuscript type appropriate for the journal?
• Is your work too similar to other articles in the journal?


• TIP: When submitting your cover letter to a publisher it is good practice to reference how your article meets the aims and scope of the journal.

• Determine if it is better for you to publish in a general-interest journal or a specialist journal.
• Is your work region-specific or do you want your work to be published in an international journal

While not typically a determining factor in selecting a journal, it is beneficial to be mindful of your chosen publisher's formatting guidelines when producing your work.

• Do you need to include a cover letter with your submission?
• What format should the article be submitted in? E.g., docx, LaTex, PDF, etc.
• How should the article be structured?
• What referencing style is recommended?
• Are there word/page limits to consider?
• Does the publisher provide editing, translation, and formatting support?