Choosing the Right Journal

Choosing the Right Journal

Choose the right journal for your research? or Submitting an article: Think. Check. Submit.

As a researcher, how do you evaluate whether the journal you’re about to send your work to is the real deal? The answer could lie in the three words: Think, Check, Submit. This is an initiative from a coalition of scholarly communications organizations. The Think. Check. Submit. tools help to make the process of choosing the right journal for your work simpler.

With hundreds of new academic titles launched every year, deciding whether or not a journal is worthy of your work is increasingly difficult. Having more choice is generally a good thing, but the profusion of new titles has also led to a rise in what some refer to as ‘predatory publishing’.

Put simply, ‘predatory’ journals trade, intentionally and fraudulently, off existing society or journal names. Authors send their work and, in some cases, pay publication fees to these titles in good faith – only to discover that their research hasn’t appeared in the title they thought it would.

The Think. Check. Submit. campaign empowers authors to evaluate the trustworthiness of a journal or its publisher. By using the simple checklist provided on the Think. Check. Submit. website (thinkchecksubmit.org), authors can make an informed choice before sending their articles for review.

The checklist includes ways to evaluate the credentials of any title and the society or publisher behind it. It doesn’t offer a definitive list of ‘approved’ titles, but it is another important resource that authors can draw on – as well as their colleagues and information specialists – to make sure the research they publish has maximum impact. It provides the tools to help you choose the right journal for your work.

Think. Check. Submit. was established because there are some journals which do not provide the quality assurance and services that would be delivered by a reputable journal. In particular, many of these journals do not ensure there is thorough peer review or editor feedback.

That means, if you submit to one of these journals, your research article won’t receive the benefit of helpful feedback from your peers. It may also lead to others being skeptical about the validity of your published results.

You should therefore make sure that you submit your work to a journal you can trust. The editor welcomes queries from authors regarding potential articles for GRELIS.

Many journals publish details of the key dates alongside new articles, including when the paper was submitted, accepted, and published online. While you’re at the stage of choosing a journal to submit to, take a look at these dates for a selection of recent articles published in the journals you’re considering. While each article will have a different timeline, this may help to give you a feel for how long publication may take.