Q: How can I select a suitable journal for submitting my manuscript?
I have finished writing my paper and need to select a suitable target journal to submit my paper to. Can you give me some tips on journal selection?
Asked on 24 Jul, 2014
You should be very careful when selecting a target journal for your paper as the fate of your paper depends to a large extent on this. Here are a few tips on selecting a suitable journal:
- Talk to your senior colleagues and professors. Find out which journals are popular in the field and the ones they regularly follow.
- Determine whether the subject matter of your article matches the scope of the target journal.
- Check the kind of readership that the journal has. For East Asian authors, it is always better to submit to a journal that has a global audience, rather than one which has readers based only in the US.
- Consider the accessibility of the journal. Is the journal indexed in international databases? Publishing in an indexed journal will definitely improve the visibility of your paper.
- Once you shortlist a few target journals, go through their author guidelines to see whether they have any restrictions in terms of specific study designs or study techniques; for instance, some journals may publish only clinical studies, some may publish studies based only on human subjects, etc.
- Finally, you can send a pre-submission inquiry to your target journal giving a brief description of your study and asking if the journal would be interested in it.
For expert advice on selecting a target journal, you can view this video tutorial for a step-by-step guide on selecting a target journal.