Research Guides: Scholarly Communication: Choosing Where To Publish

Making The Decision Where to Publish

Where to find the answers to the following questions.

Note: off campus users will be prompted to log in with their myStevens username/password to use Library databases.

What journals are there in my field?

Journal Citation Reports
What journals are most influential (at least by one measure) in your field? Also a good source to find journals that publish in your field by region and subtopic.

What journals allow for double-blind peer review/offer open access options/have low acceptance rates?

Cabells Whitelist Journal Directory
A database of information about journals, including region, submission requirements, peer review, open access, altmetrics, and more.

What journals publish research similar to mine? What journals publish the work of people I admire?

Scopus
Analyze journal citations to find journals you'd want to publish your own work in.
Web of Science
Use Web of Science to find journals that publish the same kind of research you're doing.

How can I find journals that publish open access articles (free to read without a subscription)?

Articles can be published open access (OA) in three main ways:

A hybrid journal that publishes traditionally but also offers OA options;
A fully OA journal; or,
Uploading some version of your published article in an OA repository.

Publishers sometimes require that authors pay an "article processing charge" (APC) to publish their articles OA, but this is far from universal. The Directory of Open Access Journals indexes OA journals that pass a set of rigorous criteria, and allow you to search for journals in your field and find more information about their OA practices.

Directory of Open Access Journals
Search the DOAJ to find OA journals in your field. For more information on whether a journal charges a fee to publish, narrow your search to "Journals", and then use the "Article Processing Charges" option to choose Yes or No.

SHERPA/RoMEO Publisher Copyright & Self-Archiving Policies
Information about publishers' open access policies, including their copyright agreements and what those agreements allow authors to do.
Open Journal Matcher
Created by a City University of New York faculty member, the Open Journal Matcher "compares the similarity of user-submitted abstracts with abstracts from the Directory of Open Access Journals, and provides a list of the 5 top matching journals." Use this to find new journals of interest or one to which you can submit your own work.
Journal Checker Tool (cOAlition S)
The Journal Checker Tool from cOAlition S (a European partnership of scientific research organizations to enact Plan S, in furtherance of open access publishing) helps authors see if their publication plans (journal, funder, institution) are compliant with Plan S's open access requirements.

The Publication Process

Some examples of the publication process, which you can usually find in a section marked "Information for Authors" or something similar. See the SHERPA/RoMEO database for the copyright agreements of these and other publishers.

Science Magazine/AAAS: Information for Authors
Requirements and the process involved in submitting an article to Science.
IEEE Author Tools
Includes submission guidelines and information about their peer review process.
Elsevier For Authors
Includes sections on Open Access and Authors' Rights as well as submission process.
PLOS One: Submitting a Manuscript
An open access example.
SHERPA/RoMEO Publisher Copyright & Self-Archiving Policies
Look for publishers' copyright agreements here! Read them before you decide where to publish.

Publisher and Funder Open Access Policies

What does your publisher allow you to do with your work? What does your funder expect you to do with it?

Based at the University of Nottingham and in association with JISC, SHERPA's databases support authors and researchers in need of information about publishers' and funders' open access policies.

SHERPA/RoMEO Publisher Copyright & Self-Archiving Policies
Look for publishers' copyright agreements here! Read them before you decide where to publish.
SHERPA/JULIET Research Funder Open Access Policies
Those who fund research might require wider access to the results of it. Check for open access policies here.

Writing Help

Need advice with your writing? The Stevens Writing & Communication Center can help!

Writing & Communications Center (@ Stevens)
The WCC helps students develop the written and oral communication skills essential to their success in academic coursework and beyond Stevens. WCC consultants are available at all stages of the writing process. They also provide handouts and online links as supplementary resources.

Avoiding Predatory Journals

You may get an email from a journal claiming to be legitimate, with known names on its masthead, offering you the chance to publish your work with them for a small fee. If it feels fishy, investigate further! Once your work is published anywhere, even in an illegitimate journal, other publishers will not want to accept your article.

Do a lateral search: open another tab and Google the publisher. If nothing comes up other than their own website, that's a red flag.

Here are some tools to help you ascertain whether a journal is legitimate or predatory.

More Info about Predatory Publishers

Understanding Predatory Publishers (M. O'Donnell, Iowa State University)
A great research guide by Megan O’Donnell of Iowa State University. Defines what it means to be a predatory publisher and how to identify them.

Journal and Publisher Whitelists

Cabells Whitelist Journal Directory
The Cabells Whitelist journal directory provides information about journals currently published in the fields of accounting, computer science, economics & finance, management, and marketing to help those looking to publish their work figure out where and how to do so. Journals are added to the whitelist when their publishing and peer review practices meet the criteria proving they don't engage in predatory practices.
Directory of Open Access Journals
The DOAJ has a rigorous approval process for journals included in its directory. If you don’t see your publisher here, that is some proof it might not be on the up and up.

Credibility Assessment Tools

"Think. Check. Submit." Journal Credibility Checker
"Think. Check. Submit." is a a cross-industry initiative led by representatives from several international open access publishing organizations and provides authors with a means of checking the credibility of journals to help them decide where to publish and avoid predatory publishers.
Be iNFORMEd: Checklist (Duke)
A checklist from the Duke University Medical Center Library and Archives to help authors identify predatory practices in publishers when deciding where to publish.

Copyright and the SPARC Author Addendum

When you sign a traditional publishing agreement with a publisher, they will take your rights of copyright in exchange for publishing your article. You have the ability to negotiate to retain some of these rights, and one way of doing so is with the Author Addendum from SPARC.

The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) is an alliance of academic and research libraries organized through the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Their Author Resources page includes the Author Addendum as well as more information about copyright and open access as it relates to academic researchers.

Below, find the PDFs of the Author Addendum and the guide on Author Rights.

SPARC: Author Rights & the SPARC Author Addendum
More information on your rights as an author.

SPARC (Association of Research Libraries)
The website for the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition, part of the Association of Research Libraries. Find information on open access and author's rights here.
Association of Research Libraries
The organization behind SPARC. Lots of interesting information here.