Find the Right Journal

Finding the right journal can be a challenge. Authors must be wary of predatory publishers who do not have their best interests at heart. Use some of the tools below to find the best journal for your research and to stay educated on your rights as an author.

• Think. Check. Submit. - a toolkit providing a list of questions you should be able to answer YES to before submitting your work
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - a community-curated list of high-quality, open access, peer reviewed journals
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association - a representative entity of open-access publishers dedicated to developing appropriate business models and standards to support OA publishing
• Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers - an archived list of open access scholarly publishers with questionable practices or policies that may fit certain criteria that define a predatory publisher

Make sure that your research falls within the scope of the journal. Consider the journal's audience and the other types of articles that the journal publishes. Use some of the tools below to find journal suggestions for your research.

• Elsevier Journal Finder (Free)
• Journal Citation Reports (Subscription)
• Journal Guide (Free)
• Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE) (Free)
• Journals in NCBI Databases (Free)
• SCIMAGO (Free)
• Springer Journal Suggester (Free)
• Ulrichsweb (Subscription)
• Wiley Journal Finder (Free)

• you or your colleagues have never heard of the journal before
• you cannot easily identify or contact the publisher
• the peer review process is unclear
• you cannot find a mention of an editorial board

SHERPA/RoMEO is an online resources that aggregates publisher open access policies regarding copyright, self-archiving permissions, and the rights of authors.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has released a set of recommendations on the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals, including author responsibilities and roles.

The NIH public access policy requires researchers to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to PubMed Central. If your research has been funded by the NIH, find out more about how to be in compliance.

Follow Think. Check. Submit. on Twitter @thinkchecksub.

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