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Researcher Skills Toolkit

Journal articles

When deciding which journal to publish your research in you need to consider a range of  factors, including the relevance and scope of the journal, journal quality, where the journal is indexed, accessibility and open access and publication timeliness.
 

In this video University of Newcastle researchers discuss their strategies for selecting the right journal to publish their research.

Ask yourself:

  • Does your research suit the target audience of the journal?
  • Do the aims and objectives of the journal match your research?
  • Does the journal publish the type of article you are working on (for example, case study, systematic review, protocol, opinion piece)?
  • Are you looking for a journal that published research solely within your field, or are you targeting a journal that has a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary focus?
  • Are editorial board members and reviewers' experts or practitioners in the discipline the journal focuses on?
  • Does the journal align with the Field of Research Code (FOR) for your discipline? 
  • Which journals do you commonly cite in this research area?
  • Where do authors within your research area publish?
  • Will you be publishing research data related to the research, and what are the journal’s policies on this?

The following resources may assist you to select the right journal to publish your research in.

Resource Details
ERA Journal List  Includes over 25,000 peer-reviewed journals defined as eligible for inclusion on the 2023 ERA submissions. Search by FOR code.
UlrichsWeb Try an Advanced Search using the Subject (Keyword) or Subject (Exact) search options.
Journal Citation Reports and SJR Rankings Search for specific titles or browse subject categories and view rank and quartiles for the journal impact factors and SJR.
JANE - Journal /Author Name Estimator Enter a title or abstract, or search by keyword. Jane then compares millions of documents in PubMed to find the best matching journals, authors, or articles.
JournalGuide Search by journal name, category, or publisher, or enter a title or abstract to discover journals that have already published articles on similar topics. By matching journals to a paper’s content, researchers can see which journals match their topic.
Manuscript Matcher Accessed via a free EndNote Online account, search using words from a title or abstract. Manuscript Matcher identifies journals indexed in the Web of Science databases. Results include impact factor, quartile and subject category details.

To publish in a scholarly journal, an article must first pass through a peer review process where a group of experts in the field reviews the article for content, scholarly soundness, and academic value. This review process helps ensure that articles reflect solid scholarship in their fields.

Not all articles published in peer-reviewed journals are refereed. Examples of non-refereed articles include editorials, letters, opinion pieces, conference reports.

Check UlrichsWeb or the ERA 2023 Submission Journal List to confirm if a journal is peer-reviewed.

The ARWU Top Journal List includes 180 journals selected as the top journals by 1000 academics from the highest ranked world universities in the Shanghai Rankings.

The number of journals included on the list represents a small proportion of journals published internationally. Included journals are restricted to titles indexed in the Web of Science databases.

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is included in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database. JIF is:

... a measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period.  ... The impact factor of a journal is calculated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years.

Journals are assigned to a subject category or multiple categories. The top 25% within a category based on the impact factor are placed in Quartile 1 (Q1) and are considered higher quality than journals included in lower quartiles. It is therefore important to check the JIF quartile.

Issues to be aware of when using the JIF:

  • JCR indexes a small percentage of international scholarly journals
  • There is a strong bias towards English language, STEM and North American publications
  • Only a small number of journals from Australian publishers are included 
  • JIF cannot be used to assess the quality of individual articles
  • JIF is calculated based on 'citable' items only (excludes editorials, news items, etc)
  • Certain types of articles - for example, review articles - attract more citations
  • JIF can be ‘skewed’ significantly by highly cited articles.

Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) is a prestige metric based on the idea that ‘all citations are not created equal.’  Scimago journal rankings calculate the average number of weighted citations received in a year divided by articles published in a journal in the previous 3 years. They consider the prestige of the cited journals. 

Journals are assigned to a subject category or multiple categories. The top 25% within a category based on the SJR rank are placed in Quartile 1 (Q1) and are considered higher quality than journals included in lower quartiles. It is therefore important to check the SJR quartile.

Issues to be aware of when using SJR:

  • Whilst SJR covers more journals than JCR, it does not include all international journals
  • The SJR Rank is a measure of journal quality. It cannot be used to assess the quality of individual articles
  • The SJR rank for a journal can ‘skewed’ significantly by highly cited articles.

SJR ranks can be found either:

More well-known discipline lists: 

  • ABDC Journal Quality List – compiled by the Australian Business Deans Council, this list includes over 2,600 journals ranked as A*, A, B or C.
  • APSA Journal List (2019 edition) - includes 664 political science journals. Journals are ranked as A*, A, B and C. The list is currently being reviewed.

COPE – the Committee on Publication Ethics have developed a set of Core Practices. Member publishers must ensure their journals have robust and publicly documented practices covering allegations of misconduct, authorship and contributorship, complaints and appeals, conflict of interest, data and reproducibility, ethical oversight, intellectual property, journal management, peer-review processes, and post publication discussions and corrections.

Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) – publisher members undergo a rigorous review process and adhere to the OASPA Code of Conduct which includes criteria related to journal transparency, data protection and privacy, open access status and licensing.

After all the arduous work of undertaking and authoring research results it is important that other researchers can discover your publications in their own literature searches.

Journal websites often include lists of databases that index a journal. However, it is important to confirm this indexing by checking independent sources.

Ask yourself Why is this important? Where to find more information
Which databases index the journal? If journals are not indexed in databases, they will not be located by other researchers when searching for literature.

Search UlrichsWeb for the journal. The Abstracting and Indexing section will include databases which index the journal.

 
Is the journal indexed by the discipline specific databases in your research field? Researchers in the same field of research as your own will retrieve details of your publications in their literature searches.
Is the journal indexed in the major databases?

Records included in Scopus and Web of Science are used by the key university ranking schemes (Scopus – QS and THE; Web of Science – Shanghai Rankings and Leiden Rankings).

The Scopus Content Policy and Selection and Web of Science Editorial Selection Process selects journals based on the following criteria:

  • high-quality peer-reviewed content
  • regular publishing schedules
  • content with international appeal
  • publication ethics statements.

Several options are available for University of Newcastle authors to make their journal articles open access.

Option Details
Publish in an open access journal at no cost to authors The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) indexes over 12,366 peer-reviewed journals that do not charge an article processing charge (APC) to publish articles. 
Publish in a ‘read and publish’ agreement journal at no cost to authors

The University Library has signed several 'read and publish' agreements to enable researchers at the University to publish their research open access in over 7,800 journals.

All eligible articles accepted for publication in these journals are not subject to APCs.
Publish in a paywalled journal, then share a version of your manuscript in NOVA at no cost to authors

Authors can deposit versions of their articles published in paywalled journals into NOVA, University’s institutional repository.

Sherpa Romeo provides details of publishers’ open access policies and summaries of publishers’ copyright and open access archiving policies.

Contact nova@newcastle.edu.au for more information.
Pay an article processing charge (APC) to publish open access

APCs are payable by authors to cover the open access cost in some journals. 

The DOAJ lists over 5,000 peer-reviewed open access journals which charge an APC.
Institutional membership discounts on the costs of the APC are also available with some publishers. Check the Open access publishing agreement page for more detail. 
The University of Newcastle has established an APC Fund to support the payment of open access publishing in high quality journals. Check the APC Fund page for more information.

The period of time between submission to publications can vary between publishers. You should weigh up the need for timely publication with a quality peer review.

Ask yourself these questions about the journal you have selected:

  • How important is it to have your research published as soon as possible?
  • How many issues are published per year, and on average how many articles per issue?
  • Does the journal include an 'online first' option?
  • What is the usual time for submission to review, review to acceptance, then acceptance to publication?
JournalGuide JournalGuide lists 46,000 journals across a range of publishers. It includes user-submitted information on speed of publication.
American Psychological Association American Psychological Association contains information about manuscript rejection rates, circulation data, publication lag time and other statistics for APA journals.
SciRev SciRev offers researchers the opportunity to share their experiences and select an efficient journal to submit their work. It includes details of the average time between submission and receiving reviewer comments.

To be eligible for categorisation as a C1 journal article for internal reporting process and ERA, a journal article must: 

  • be published within the ERA reference period
  • been through an acceptable peer review process
  • published original research
  • published in a scholarly publication
  • an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN).

Check the Guidelines for Traditional Research Outputs for further details.

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