Publishing Your Scholarly Article

Publish your work in the journal where it will have the most impact!

Readership, prestige, availability, subject scope, peer review process and acceptance rate should all be considered when choosing a journal. Resources in this section will guide you toward this information.

Where to Start

Search a database for related articles and see where they were published. 

Some other search strategies are:

• Find databases using the Libraries Web Site Database tab (sort by subject).
• Use the Journals by Title List and browse by subject to find a list of journals in your discipline. 

Or try:

Consider:

• What is the journal’s scope/audience?
• Is the journal refereed (peer reviewed)?
• Where is the journal indexed?
• Who is the publisher? (consider university presses, professional associations)
• Is the journal Open Access?

Look at the journal itself

• Consult Tables of Contents

• Look at topics, subjects, and scope of the journal
• Link to journal website for Information for Authors. See the "Instructions for Authors" section on the "Writing a Scientific Article" tab of this guide
• Use the scoring rubric in this Journal Evaluation Tool to help you objectively measure a publications impact according to your academic area

Journal metrics:

- is the comparison and ranking of scholarly publications. Phrases that you may find that indicate a journal's metric include: "journal importance," "journal rankings," "scholar metrics," "impact factor"  and "journal impact."

Look at Acceptance Rates

In general journals with lower acceptance rates are more prestigious.

Consider Journal Availability

Cost and distribution can influence availability of a journal.