How to choose the right journal

Which journals do you read?

A great starting place might be your favourite or most-read journals. These will most likely publish research in your area, and you might have a real feel for the scope. Add them to your list to consider.

Get advice from your support network

Chances are that you know a few other people in the research community. Ask them what they think, or if they have any recommendations. Your network of peers, professors and advisors have a wealth of knowledge and experience that can really guide you. Any of their suggestions are worth thinking about.

Always check the journals’ scope

If you do have a couple of journals in mind, find out what their scope really is. Every Royal Society of Chemistry journal has a dedicated webpage which outlines the aims, intentions and scope. You are more likely to be accepted if these match the subject and goals of your article. These web pages are also a good place to check if the style of your article fits the journal. For example, not all journals publish full-length papers so it wouldn’t be worth sending one in for consideration.

Who is on the editorial and advisory boards?

It’s a good sign if you recognise the editorial and advisory board members of a journal. Knowing people on the boards suggests that you are submitting to a journal in the right subject area. And if you can trust the board members, you can trust that the journal upholds quality practices.

Think about your target audience

Is your research very specialised? Will it mostly benefit other researchers in your discipline? Or could it affect and help researchers in related fields? These are questions worth thinking about because they can help you decide whether to submit to a multidisciplinary journal or a more specialised platform.

Open access vs hybrid

This might be a personal preference or a requirement of your funding body but deciding if you would like to publish open access, or not, might affect your decision. At the Royal Society of Chemistry, we have a dedicated portfolio of gold open-access journals. However, you can publish gold open access in one of our hybrid journals, too. A member of our editorial team is always available to help if you need to discuss this further.

Have you thought about peer review models?

Wherever you submit, you want to make sure that you know and trust the journal’s publishing process. We always disclose our peer review models for each journal, so you can always be sure to understand the process. For instance, some offer transparent and single- and double-anonymised peer review (find a full breakdown here). Choosing one of our journals will make sure that your manuscript is handled fairly.

What is the reputation of the journal?

There are several factors that can provide a balanced view of a journal’s reputation (some of which we’ve already mentioned) including target audience, peer review, previously published authors and metrics. However, you might want to also consider a journal’s impact factor (JIF).

It is important to note that the impact factor is just one of many metrics available, and it is not necessarily the best one to determine a journal’s reputation. For example, a review-only journal might have a higher impact factor because reviews generally receive more citations than research papers. If the impact factor is important to you, then we recommend comparing journals that publish research in similar subject areas.

We have compiled our journal metrics - this includes citation-based metrics such as impact factor but also times to publication, where our journals are indexed and more.