Welcome to an ebook that gives you insight into selecting target journals for publishing your research papers. With thousands of journals to choose from, navigating the publication landscape can be an overwhelming, and sometimes frustrating, process. Targeting the appropriate journal for your paper is an essential element in building your professional acumen because journals vary in their popularity, scope, and outreach. Therefore, selecting the right journal helps expose your research, increase citations and thus your professional profile, and helps position your work within your research field.
In this ebook, we’re going to break down the publication process into two parts: the pre-submission process and the post submission phase. Part I will explore the pre-submission process, including outlining the main factors authors ought to consider when choosing a target journal for their research, the kind of journal available to you as an author, such as peer-reviewed versus open access, and journal specific guidelines for formatting your paper. Part II will explore such topics as the common reasons journals reject papers, how to interpret these to maximise your chances of resubmission, the common kinds of rejections from journals, and the impact different journals may ultimately have on your overall research career, including how to increase employability based on target journal submission. Finally, we’ll discuss the more general areas of journal submission, including how many papers graduate students are expected to publish, whether your department or university cares which journal you target, and the appropriate strategies for diversifying your research outreach. For each topic, we’ll explore general and field specific guidelines, advice, and strategies, covering science, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences.