Which journal?
If you have decided to publish in a journal then you need to develop a publishing strategy whereby a first, second and third choice journal are selected (or perhaps more where relevant). For ethical reasons, you must not submit your paper for publication to more than one journal at any one time (Albarran and Scoles 2005). However, if your publication is completely rejected from one journal then you can submit it to another. If you have a publication strategy then should your submission be rejected, you can submit to your second choice and so on.
The reason that it is important to consider your choice of journal so carefully is because aiming your paper specifically at your target journal is a key factor in successfully getting published. This means that if you are rejected from one journal you may have to alter your paper before submitting it to another not least to match the house style of the relevant publication.
'I would rate the formatting and targeting of an article to a particular journal as the most important factor in successful writing for publication (Cook 2000; 23).'
How do you decide on a journal shortlist?
Type of journal and circulation
Firstly you need to consider the type of journal that you wish to publish in, distinguished below by the level and type of readership:
- Popular/professional (large circulation >80, 000)
- Specialist
- Applied journals (selective readership)
- Multi-disciplinary (selective readership)
- Scholarly/academic (selective but international readership)
- On-line publication
What type of journal is most suitable for your paper? If you have produced an empirical research paper, then a scholarly or academic journal will probably be most suitable. If you are writing a letter to the editor, then obviously your letter will have to go to the relevant journal. Do you want to publish in a subject specific journal or perhaps a popular magazine with a wider circulation? An example:
'In nursing, mainstream or weekly journals tend to have an averge readership of 60 000 or more, whereas the peer reviewed academic journals will have a far smaller reading audience. Specialist journals such as those that apply to critical care issues have a dedicated following that is based on personal subscriptions' (Albarran and Scholes 2005).
Journal impact factor
Journals are ranked in order of their 'impact factor' which is a measure of how frequently the articles contained are cited in other journals and is considered as a measure of the journals influence. Check with your supervisor or faculty librarian to find out which impact factor assessment you should refer to.
Additional considerations
- Is the journal peer reviewed? (central to quality assurance within academia)
- Do you need to write a query letter to the editor with an outline of the paper?
- What is the overall time lag between acceptance and publication in the public domain?
Once you have produced a short list of potential journals you should rank them in order of preference. You might like to ask your supervisor for assistance with this task or at least show the completed short list to them for comment. What will your ranking criteria be?
The following exercise will familiarise you with the contextual information contained in journals: something you may not have considered before. This exercise can be completed online or in the library and can be printed out or saved to your file store. It should take no longer than 1 hour to complete.