Welcome!
This guide is designed to assist faculty members in-
- Identifying potential journals in which to publish
- Exploring tools to identify specific journals of interest
- Knowing the pros and cons of open access journals
- Identifying open access journals with author fees
Contact your departmental subject librarian if you need assistance finding journals.
Other Useful Guides
The library has many guides on related topics which will provide additional information-
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Author's Rights & Publishing AgreementsThis guide has additional information on your rights as an author and how to manage those rights.
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CopyrightAdditional information on creating and using copyrighted works on campus and beyond.
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Faculty Toolkit: Altmetrics & Academic Social MediaThe resources and sites contained in this guide focus on the academic and scholarly oriented social media sites, plus other new tools for research. There are many more professionally oriented or "fun" social media sites out there, that you can use to network, too.
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Faculty Toolkit: Scholarly Imact, Beyond Traditional MeasuresThis guide will outline the pros and cons of impact factors, introduce you to some of the newer tools for measuring impact, and provide some tips and tricks you can use to create and manage your scholarly profile in an online environment
Selecting Journals- A Short Video
Think. Check. Submit. is a campaign endorsed by many scholarly organizations worldwide to help researchers identify trusted journals for their research. It is a simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher.
Which Journal?
Try searching for the topic of your article in a relevant database to see where related articles in your field have been published.
In addition, you may also consider using the following databases and tools. This list isn't exhaustive but does provide some good starting points.
Researching by Journal Title-
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Journal Citation ReportsAnnual analysis of scholarly journals in sciences, social sciences & humanities. Objectively determines the relative importance of journals within their subject categories. Information for each title includes the "impact factor" (measurement of the frequency with which the average article has been cited in a particular year) and the "immediacy index" (how quickly the average article in a journal is cited).
Be sure and see links to training videos and online tutorials listed in database description at this link for additional information
Researching by Subjects/Authors/Affiliations and More-
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ScopusScience, Technology, Medicine, Social Science, Arts & Humanities. Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize scholarly research. With Scopus you can locate the most highly cited items and the articles that cite them. Tutorials and quick reference guides will help you get started.
Comprehensive citation index covering the leading scholarly literature around the world. Contains Journal Citation Reports for both Science and Social Science, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Citation Index- Science and Social Science & Humanities, Book Citation Index- Science and Social Science & Humanities, Current Chemicial Reactions, Index Chemicus, BIOSIS Citation Index, Current Contents Connect, Data Citation Index, Derwent Innovations Index, Medline (1950- ), and Zoological Record.
Be sure and consult the training links provided on our databases page for more information.
Here are some directories of journals and some publisher specific tools for locating journals-
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UlrichswebUse Ulrichsweb to find data on over 250,000 serials, periodicals, annuals, and newspapers worldwide. It includes reviews, abstracting and indexing information, email addresses, URLs, and other pertinent information.
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Cabells Scholarly AnalyticsOffers resources to evaluate academic journals and guidelines for submitting articles for publication. Quality metrics are provided for over 11,000 journals across 18 academic disciplines. Data elements include difficulty of acceptance, JCR impact factor, average time to review, publication, acceptance rate, peer review indicators. The Blacklist is a searchable database of deceptive and predatory academic journals.
Formerly Cabell's Directories of Publishing Opportunities. We suggest using the advanced search, which is collapsed just below the search box. Do not use with IE Explorer or Microsoft Edge.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)Search or browse for over 9,500 quality controlled scientific and scholarly open access journals
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Elsevier Journal FinderSearch for an Elsevier journal by name or use the Elsevier Journal Finder by entering your abstract to find journals best suited for your research.
Includes acceptance rates -
Springer Journal SelectorEnter your abstract or article description to find Springer journals best suited for your research.
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Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE)JANE matches your title, abstract, or keywords to millions of documents in MEDLINE to help determine the best journals for your research.
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Directory of Nursing JournalsVetted list of nursing journals produced by the International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE).
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AHA Directory of History JournalsAHA Website says the directory is on hiatus and they hope it will return soon, check back on the website for updates.
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MLA Directory of Periodicals-Modern Languages AssociationLook in the blue navigation bar above the search box for link to the periodicals directory
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American Anthropological AssociationGood source for journal profiles and publishing requirements in Anthropology
Be Careful About Solicitations!
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Solicitation E-mail for "Atlas of Science"In this case, "Atlas of Science" is also a legitimate publication from MIT!
Have a question about the authenticity of a publication? Librarians can help! -
Solicitation email for World Journal of Social ScienceEmail looks legitimate, but the publication is on Cabell's Blacklist
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Choosing the Right ConferenceThink. Check. Attend. is an initiative that aims to guide and assist researchers and scholars to judge the legitimacy and academic credentials of conferences in order to help them decide whether to or not attend the same.
Predatory Journals? What To Look For
Predatory open access publishing is an exploitative open-access publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not).
Be iNFORMEd
Checklist designed to help researchers determine whether or not to publish in a journal. Created by the Duke University Medical Center Library & Archives.
Beall's List- For many years, Jeffery Beall, a librarian at University of Colorado maintained a list of "predatory publishers" on his website. The list has always been a source of much debate among both scholars and the publisher community. That list was taken down in January, 2017.
ARCHIVED LIST (As of January, 2017) Beall's List: Potential, Possible, or Probable Predatory Scholarly Open-Access Publishers
This is Beall's final list, as hosted in the Internet Archive.