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Congratulations, you've done some literature research (and likely some original research too) and you are writing up your research to share with the world. This page covers strategies for finding journals and conferences relevant to your research. You will learn the pros and cons of journal rankings. Finally, I offer my recommendations for the factors you should consider when evaluating a journal for publication, including author's rights and Open Access.
My first recommendation for exploring journals or conferences where you might share your work is to identify where work similar to yours is being published or presented. An efficient way to do this is to use your citation management tool to illuminate which journals or conferences the literature you located on your topic is most often published/presented in.
Next, get to know the pros and cons of journal rankings and how to find ranked journal lists by subject:
Journal rankings are formulas or algorithms that assign a numeric value to a journal, which attempts to measure how impactful or great the reach of a journal is. Journal rankings can be useful to help you determine important journals to follow and publish with in your field. However journal rankings are problematic and there are some important caveats to consider when using journal rankings:
Here are four common journal ranking formulas or algorithms, with a bit of information about how the formula works.
Find a ranked list of journals according to the metrics Journal Impact Factor (JIF), Journal Citation Indicator (JCI), and Eigenfactor in:
Find a ranked list of journals according to the metric SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) in:
Now that you have identified several journals or conferences that might be a good fit for your research article, you will want to further evaluate the journals to make sure it is the right fit. Visit the webpage for the journal; and ask mentors, instructors, and peers about the reputation of the journal. Factors to consider include:
For a more detailed list of criteria you may wish to consider when evaluating a journal, check out:
In addition to journal rankings, there are metrics for the scholarly impact of:
Explore the guide below to find tools that report the various scholarly metrics:
CU Boulder Libraries provide expertise, funding, and infrastructure to support Open Access publishing: