A target journal is a journal to which you will submit your manuscript for publication. Typically an author will submit to their target journal, and if they can’t get it published there, switch to a second choice journal. It’s a good idea to have a list of 2-3 target journals for each paper you will publish.

There are so many journals out there right now. There are literally thousands upon thousands of scientific journals in every category of scientific research, and every year there are more journals appearing on the scene. So, how do you choose where to submit your work?

The first thing to think about is your audience. Ask yourself: who is your ideal reader? Who do you want to read your paper?  What do they study, what do they care about, what do they want to learn, what results will they find helpful? Once you have determined what kinds of other researchers you want to read your paper, then think about which journals they are reading. You need to choose a journal that will have readership of that audience, so make sure you match those up very carefully. The audience will overlap with some journals, but figure out which one is going to best hit your target audience. 

The second point: think about the type of research that you are doing. Among journals, they focus on different types of research. There are basic science journals, there are applied science journals, there are review article journals. As you evaluate target journals, consider what kinds of techniques you used in your research. Some journals tend to publish mostly articles with certain kinds of techniques. Think about what kind of experiments you use in your research, and  look at recent volumes of that potential target journal to see what kinds of techniques are being published there. 

Point number 3: how much of a budget do you have for publishing? Are you publishing from start-up funds? Are you publishing from a grant where there’s budget written in for publications? Or are you trying to pay for it in some creative way? Some journals charge article processing fees. Most open access journals have a publication fee, and for some journals it’s very expensive: $1000 to $6000 or even more for some of the journals. Keep in mind that some professional society journals don’t charge the authors to publish. 

A fourth important consideration is: how much time do you have? Different journals publish at different speeds. Some of the journals are very rapid, and you might get reviews back within 3 to 4 weeks. Other journals are much slower and it might take 2 months or 3 months to get reviews back. Then, once you get reviews and have your paper accepted, how long does it take before it shows up in press or online? Some journals have instant access, where as soon as it’s accepted it shows up online. Other journals might take a few weeks. To see their speed, you can go into your  potential target journal to look at the dates on recent publications. You can look at the time between submission and acceptance and publication to get a feel for the speed of different journals. 

Tip number five is to consider the prestige of the journal. Is this a journal that’s very selective, where it is really hard to publish in this journal, and therefore amongst your field it has more prestige? Or is it a journal that is easier to publish in and is less prestigious? If you feel like your work is strong and I can speak for itself, maybe you don’t worry about the prestige level. Journal Impact Factor which is a kind of a proxy for prestige. Think about whether you want to go for a really top journal, a mid-range journal, or are you happy with the lower range journals? Sometimes it’s perfectly appropriate to publish in a lower end journal, depending on your particular situation your needs at the time.

Point number 6: You also want to make sure that the journal you’re selecting is not a predatory journal. I have another post on predatory journals that describes what they are. You want to avoid those because although they might be fast and they might be inexpensive, they are not going to help your career very much. In fact, it might hurt your career if you are publishing in predatory journals.

What do you think? Do you have additional tips on choosing a target journal? Leave a comment below!