Quick Reference for the Health Sciences

Choosing the right journal will help create greater impact for your research!

Submitting a manuscript to an unsuitable journal is a common mistake. It can be frustrating and time consuming when a paper is not accepted for publication. It is worthwhile to spend some time finding the right journal for your work.

When choosing a journal consider the following:

• Aim & Scope
• Readership
• Peer Review Process
• Acceptance Rate/Prestige
• Level of Influence
• Availability/Reach

​Following this guide will help you make the right choice for your research!

The University of Colorado Libraries have an excellent tutorial called Publish, Not Perish: the art and craft of publishing in scholarly journals. 

Usually, before writing your manuscript, you'll need to undertake a literature review. Librarians at Dalhousie can help with this. Please contact a librarian in your subject area.

How to determine a journal's Subject Scope

• Find out where others in the field/area are publishing. Search a database in your subject area and find articles on a topic similar to yours and note the journal titles.

• Look at the journal's aim and scope statements.

• Find out the types of articles that the journal usually publishes in the About page or in their Author Guidlines.

• Take a key paper in the field and see what journals appear in the bibliography.

• Journal Finder (Elsevier): find a suitable journal through Journal Finder

How to determine a journal's readership

• Check with faculty members in your department for good journal candidates

• Who is the publisher? (consider university presses, professional associations) 

• Check the target readership in the About section of the journal/website.

Consider how Peer-Review is completed

High quality Journals are always peer-reviewed or refereed.

• Check the journal's website to determine how peer-review is done 

  • Is it double-blind? Open?

• Does it complete the peer-review process in a timely manner?

Look at your chosen journal acceptance rate

Generally, journals with lower acceptance rates are more prestigious.

• Google the journal name: Acceptance rates for journals can often be found on their home pages.

• Publishing at the Top of the Heap: A good summary from Science Magazine that includes sample acceptance rates and impact factors.

• American Psychological Association (APA) Journal Acceptance Rates: APA provides statistics including the number of manuscripts received, accepted, and percentage of rejected manuscripts from 2004 to 2016

Compare how journals rank in comparison to other journals

• Eigenfactor.org

Find a Journal's Eigenfactor Score and Article Influence Score by searching Eigenfactor.org. These scores use Journal Citation Reports data to measure a journal's importance to the scientific community and the impact of its articles.

• SCImago Journal & Country

SCImago Journal Rank Indicator (SJR) indicates the influence of the average article from the journal. SCImago was developed from information in the Scopus database. Also provides h - index scores.

Indexing and Distribution can influence a journal's availability.

Widely indexed journals will increase the likelihood your article is found.  

• Eigenfactor.org - In addition to influence, this site also displays the cost of prices and measures its effectiveness.

• Ulrich's Web - ​​Find out if the journal is indexed in major databases in your field. Find where journals are indexed using 

​Open Access (OA)

Consider publishing in an Open Access journal. Or perhaps in Dalhousie's Institutional Repository, if the journal allows you to do so

• Dalhousie's Open Access Guide -  Learn about open access, author processing charges, and more​

• Does the copyright or licensing agreements allow you to work as you would like?

• SPARC - Learn how and why this international organization is making Open Access an academic publishing norm​​

• Open Access (Wiki) - Learn more about Open Access Publishing on this wiki

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - A comprehensive list of Open Access journals

• BioMedCentral - A list of Open Access journals within the biomedical field

​ Predatory Publishers

Did you know that some publishing companies exist only to garner fees from authors? Known as predatory publishing, these pseudo-journals exist to exploit the good intentions of authors trying to publish in Open Access journals.

• Dal's Open Access Guide - Predatory Publisher - Learn more about predatory publishing and find useful resources here.

• Think, Check, Submit - Learn to identify trustworthy journals with these guidelines

• CARL - How to Assess a Journal - Use this downloadable PDF as a guideline for assessing if a journal is trustworthy

• Canadian Authors Association

This not-for-profit organization advocates for Canadian authors

• Committee on Publication Ethics

This organization promotes ethics in publishing

• 5 Tips for Publishing Your First Academic Article

This brief article outlines 5 important things for getting published