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Which journal or book publisher to publish with
Paula Callan and Catherine Radbourne
Once the research has been conducted, a decision has to be made about which channels to use to communicate the findings. Ideally, this involves creating a publication strategy. Should the findings be published as a peer reviewed journal article, presented at a conference or perhaps a book or book chapter is more appropriate?
Research outputs can also include non-traditional formats such as reports, creative works, software and other digital and non-digital publications.
Wherever research findings are published, the highest principles of integrity, reproducibility and transparency must be adhered to.
All research must be reported in a complete and accurate way, including following the relevant reporting guidelines, and there should be a mechanism to ensure that underlying data can be made available.
Decisions also need to made about authorship. Who will be included as an author and how will the order of authors on the publication be decided?
Getting Started
Publishing in journals
When choosing which journal to publish in, researchers often need to think beyond the prestige of a journal title. It is more important (but not the only thing of importance) to ensure that the manuscript is the best it can be, getting feedback from colleagues prior to submission and making changes where appropriate. It needs to tell a good story to catch the interest of the journal editors and eventually, the journal readers.
Once the researcher feels that their manuscript is in optimal condition, they need to choose an appropriate journal to submit to.
The following text-matching tools from the various publishers may help researchers in choosing where to publish.
QUT Library has created a series of videos on Publishing Tips to help researchers in their publishing journey. Watch this video on Targeting a journal and suggestions for submitting.
Exercise: Test one or more of the text-matching or journal finder tools listed above using a published journal article. See if the journal in which the article was published is included in the list of suggested journals. What are some of the other factors that should be considered when choosing a journal?
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When shortlisting candidate journals, it is important to consider the scope, the quality and the reach of the journals being considered.
Journal scope
If a manuscript is not a good ‘fit’ for the journal’s scope, it is unlikely to make it past the initial screening stage. Some journals only publish original research while others will also accept review articles and case studies. The scope notes on the journal website (often in the ‘About’ section) will describe the subject scope and type of articles accepted for publication.
Journal quality
Aiming for a high quality journal is important. Journal-level measures used to assess and compare the relative quality of journals include Journal Impact Factor, Scimago quartile, CiteScore and SNIP (source normalized impact per paper). Elsevier’s “Measuring a journal’s impact” page provides an overview of the main journal level metrics. It is a good idea to check if the journal is indexed by Scopus or Web of Science or included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) as the rigorous selection processes used by these databases filters out poor quality journals. Think Check Submit also provides a useful checklist to guide this process.
Journal reach
When shortlisting journals, researchers should consider whether or not they regularly read and cite articles in the journal. If the answer is no, then it is unlikely that the article will reach the primary target audience. Ideally, the goal should be to reach as wide an audience as possible.
This can be achieved by publishing in an open access journal (consult DOAJ to find a suitable journal) or by uploading a copy of the accepted manuscript (AM) version to an institutional repository. Most journals allow this. The publisher’s policy on open access is usually available on the journal’s website or you can check the Sherpa RoMEO database of publisher policies.
If the journal registers a DOI for each article and the contents are indexed in databases such as Scopus, Web of Science or key discipline-specific databases such as PubMed, then the article (and subsequent citations) will be more discoverable.
Journal Comparison Tools
Journal comparison tools facilitate comparison of the relative merits of shortlisted journals. If your institution has access to Scopus, the “Compare sources” tool allows you to generate a chart comparing the CiteScore metrics for up to 10 journals.
Exercise: Go to SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) click on ‘Explore’ Journal Ranks, select a subject area and subject category with which you are familiar. Filter the results list from ‘All Types’ to just ‘Journals’. This produces a list of journals in this subject category, ranked by SJR (SCImago Journal Rank). The ranked lists also indicate the quartile position (Q1 – Q4) for each journal. Click on the title of a Q1 journal and view the range of metrics and details available.
In some cases, the publishing strategy may include publishing a book. Selecting the right publisher is the first step when planning to submit a proposal for a scholarly monograph or edited book and this can be challenging. The first step would be to confirm that they have published similar books. It is also a good idea to check if your library is purchasing books from that publisher.
Having selected one or more potential book publishers, it is important to read the guidelines for authors on the publisher website before a book proposal is submitted. An example of a successful book proposal can be seen here.
NTROs (Non-traditional research outputs), including conferences
NTROs, including conferences, were not covered in this chapter. For more information on publishing/presenting creative works, please see the University of Melbourne guide, Research Impact for Fine Arts – Checklists.
While these checklists are for use during and after the output, they can also be used in advance to think about venue size, gallery location, prestige of the venue, etc which are important elements to consider when producing or publishing an NTRO.
For information on Presenting and Publishing at Conferences, please read The University of Melbourne guide.
Strategies for increasing discoverability, access and impact
Regardless of the format, there are strategies that can increase the discoverability and, hence, impact of research publications. The keystone strategy is to provide an open access version via a repository if the published version is not open access.
Titles and keywords should include words that are likely to be used as search terms. Another good suggestion is to write a plain language summary that can be shared via social media or even attached to the repository record.