How to Choose the Right Journal for Your Research

Publishing a Research Paper: Choosing a journal to publish your research paper is an important process. However, the process of selecting a suitable journal to publish your work can be complicated and confusing. This article provides details on:

 

1. Importance of publishing in journals.                                           
2. Locating/Selecting a journal.
3. Factors to consider when selecting a journal.

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Importance of Publishing a Research Paper in Journals

Publishing your dissertation, thesis, project, study, or research is one of the ways of disseminating findings. It is appealing to publish your research findings in journals as opposed to other mediums because:

1. Journals are widely considered as the primary means for researchers to disseminate their findings to peers, other specialists, and the public.
2. Research published in journals is considered to possess more validity as the content is often peer-reviewed.

Identifying and Selecting the Best Journal

The process of identifying potential journals to publish your research can be daunting. The three sources researchers can use to create a list of journals include the reference list, publisher websites, and indexing databases.

• Reference List: The reference list of the study conducted should be the researchers’ primary source for potential journals.
• Publisher Websites: Researchers can use keywords and topics to identify journals on different publisher websites. The searching and filtering functionalities on publishers’ websites such as Springer and Elsevier can be helpful.
• Indexing Databases: Databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, EBSCOHost, ERIC, Wiley, and Science Direct can help researchers identify journals of interest. These databases have an advanced search feature that allows an individual to customize and filter the outcomes in terms of publication date, population, subject, and article type. Science Open and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) are useful for researchers who wish to publish their work as open access.

Factors to Consider when Selecting a Journal to Publish a Research Paper 

Your research must have a corresponding scope with the journal selected. The factors to consider have been outlined in Table one.

Table One: Factors to consider when selecting a journal

FACTORS
Journal Name	Index Databases
Editor/s-in-Chief	Peer-review policy
Aims, Scope, and Audience	Article-processing cost
Word Count limits	Impact Factor
Figures / tables limits	Scopus Scimago Journal & Country Rank
Referencing Style	Cite-Score and Google Scholar H-Index

NOTE: Authors should be guided by the journal’s instruction when developing an article.

Writing a cover letter to the journal editors is the next step after identifying the best journal for your research. Have you already identified your journal? Get journal submission cover letter writing help and editing services. For inquiries, contact us. We are passionate about understanding and anticipating your needs.