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
PHOTO TIMETRAX23/FLICKR (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Contact your departmental subject librarian if you need assistance finding journals.
Acceptance Rates
In general, lower journal acceptance acceptance rates are considered more prestigious.
Listed below are the few resources that include the acceptance rates of a journal. Acceptance rates are sometimes provided on publisher websites as part of the instructions to authors material. If you cannot find the acceptance rate of a journal by using the tools provided or viewing the journal's website, try contacting the editor directly. Be aware that some journals make their acceptance rates easily available, others consider this proprietary information and do not .
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Cabell's Scholarly Analytics databaseReferred to as "Difficulty of Acceptance." A good resource for finding acceptance rates and other pertinent information about journals in various disciplines.
Does not cover every discipline. Cabell's now includes a "blacklist" of predatory publishers and publications.
Acceptance Rates By Discipline Associations or Societies
Websites of professional organizations/societies sometimes will provide data on acceptance rates for journals they publish.
American Psychological Association (APA). Rates are listed in these reports for each journal.
Association for the Advancement of Computers in Education review policy & acceptance rates.
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.
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 publications worldwide. It includes reviews, abstracting and indexing information, email addresses, URLs, and even includes titles which have ceased publication.
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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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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.
Includes acceptance rates. -
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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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
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.
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.