Targeting Relevant Journals for Publication a Paper

Editorial UpDCJ; Vol: 8 Issue-1, April: 2018

Targeting relevant journals for publication a paper

Iqbal M.A*

Introduction much so that it has even spawned misleading ‘fake’ metrics in which high ranks After a decide that an author have some can be bought by unethical publishers. research results that can be published, he There's even one called the ‘journal impact need to look for an appropriate journal. This factor’, which can be easily confused with the is called a "target journal". Most of the time in Thomson Reuters impact factor. our country we select journal after And the impact factor itself has received completion of writing a paper. There are criticism from Nobel laureate Randy many reasons to identify a target journal Shekman and from articles published in a before writing a paper. There are many number of leading journals, including some reasons to identify a target journal before with high impact factors. Be aware that writing a paper. To know whether the paper impact factors are not comparable across fits within the journal’s scope, one could fields. You also need to be aware that much make sure that he adheres to any length or of the information you need to interpret a word count specifications given by the journal’s impact factor may be missing. journal. Etc. If an author doesn’t choose a Journals with high impact factors often target journal before writing his paper, he promote them on their websites but this may miss out on a lot of useful information! doesn’t convey the full picture. For example, you may need to know what other journals What is an appropriate target journal? have similar impact factors. But if you want to know about all the impact factors of Choosing a target journal is not a trivial task, journals in your field, you'll need access to and there's no straight route to the answer. the Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation You have to think about a number of factors Reports, which are not free.In some niche and balance them. There are some factors fields, reputable journals may not even have describe below to find out an appropriate an impact factor. This can be because their journal. topics interest only a small community. But they might still be the best place to publish if Impact Factor: you are going to reach the right audience. By A journal’s impact factor is a measure of its the way, predatory or suspicious journals quality or prestige. This metric, owned by may present fake metrics to dupe authors. Thomson Reuters, is commonly used by Some of these fake metrics even have the researchers to identify appropriate target phrase "impact factor"! journals, but this approach can be problematic. Impact factors are rigorously Stay away from predators: calculated from citations, as described on the Academics involved in research are often Thomson Reuters website. Journals with a evaluated based on their research output or high impact factor quickly convince readers publications. Whether they get a degree, get that they are reputable or prestigious.There hired, get promoted or get tenure is often tied are other metrics that measure journal to the quantity and quality of the publications quality, such as the eigenfactor score and they have recently authored. And in some SCImago journal rank.The impact factor has country’s quantity takes precedence over become the hallmark of journal prestige — so quality and becomes a defining factor in

01 Update Dental College Journal Vol. 8 No. 1 | April 2018 career progression. Researchers working in tenure committees that are already aware of such environments may be tempted to predatory publishers. And, of course, serious publish more and faster. Thus, the demand researchers are likely to ignore papers for publication outlets increases, and so does published in suspicious journals, so these the supply — in the form of more academic papers may not be read or cited. publishers and journals. Look for verifiable claims In scholarly publishing, no overall body sets Don’t be swayed by grand claims made on a standards and processes. Anyone can buy a journal's website or in calls for papers unless domain name and set up a journal with a those claims can be verified. Being ‘under name of their choice. The sole motive may the indexing process’ with ISI, Scopus and so be making money by charging authors for on. is an example of an unverifiable claim publishing articles. These publishers may that often appears in calls for papers from have an editorial board, but its members may suspicious journals. In fact, receiving a call be complicit. Such publishers tend to name for papers out of the blue is a warning sign. their journals in a grand way, with Unless you receive the call in a discussion meaningless words such as ‘global’, list you are a member of, or from a journal ‘international’ or ‘advanced’. They may also you have submitted papers to or published have an overly broad title or scope that in, or from another trustworthy source, you includes many areas of research (to attract should be wary. I regularly receive calls for more papers). papers from random journals because they Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of have harvested my email address online and Colorado in Denver, United States, have added me to their bulk mailing list maintains a list of such 'predatory' journals without my permission. and publishers. These journals may publish Some claims can be verified: for example, a papers after cursory or no peer review, journal's membership in the Directory of despite claiming otherwise. Researchers Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open may send their papers to predatory journals Access Scholarly Publishers' Association either knowingly or naively buying into the (OASPA), and INASP Journals Online false claims made. (JOLs). These are notable collections of open access journals, and the DOAJ is And although poor peer review actually suits putting in place more rigorous criteria for authors who have not done work of a membership. sufficiently high quality to get published in A journal's membership in publishing established journals, many more are victims. societies such as the Committee on Researchers in developing countries often Publication Ethics (COPE) is also a good do not receive adequate research guidance sign. However, newly established journals early in their careers. They work in resource- may not be quickly indexed in academic poor environments and they lack research databases or may only slowly become part of writing skills. Yet they face the same publishing societies. New journals are set up pressure to ‘publish or perish’ as their all the time to address new, neglected, counterparts in developed countries. regional and other kinds of research that are However, publications in such journals not well served by existing journals. You eventually lose value and may even bring should definitely consider new journals that harm. Some researchers may be able to are relevant for your work but first evaluate temporarily advance their careers on the the editors who run them. Look at the editor’s strength of their publication count, but they profile on a university website, links to their may be shamed later on in front of their online profiles (for example, on colleagues and students as awareness of ResearchGate, Google Scholar or LinkedIn) predatory publishers increases. Others may or evidence of their dedication to the face disciplinary action by promotion or profession of journal editing, for example,

02 Update Dental College Journal Vol. 8 No. 1 | April 2018 membership of organizations such as the audience may not be very interested in such Council of Science Editors (CSE), European studies, but they could be extremely Association of Science Editors (EASE) and important at a regional level. If you're working World Association of Medical Editors on such a project, a regional journal may be (WAME). a good choice. These days, any journal that is online can potentially have an international Understand the open access model: readership. So even if you publish in a Academic publishers typically operate their regional journal, researchers elsewhere can journals using either the traditional access your paper. subscription model or an open access model. In subscription journals, readers pay Instructions to authors to access papers. In the open access model When you read research papers in the readers are not charged — but somebody process of arriving at your research question has to pay to keep the journal running. So or doing your research project, make a note open access journals either ask authors to of journals that have published research pay article processing charges (APCs) or are papers of interest to you. These could be supported by higher education institutions or suitable target journals for your future paper. funding bodies. Some journals use a ‘hybrid’ To learn the expectations of a journal, visit open access model: authors can choose to the journal's website to look up the make their work freely available by paying an instructions to authors. The instructions may article APC, or if they don't pay this their be called "author guidelines", "manuscript article will be available only to subscribers. guidelines", or something else. The open access movement aims to make research accessible to anyone who needs it. Prioritizing target journals This is a noble mission but is misused by It could well be that there's more than one predatory publishers. They ask authors to appropriate target journal for your paper. But pay article processing fees, knowing that you can only submit your paper to one they have very few readers who would pay journal at a time, so it's a good idea to identify for their journals under a subscription model. your first target: That is, what's your first But remember that the open access model is choice of journal for publishing your paper? not necessarily predatory. Far from it. There You can then have a second choice, a third are many excellent open access journals that choice, and so on. charge APCs, such as those in the PLOS family and BioMed Central. Authors who Conclusion: wish to publish in open access journals So before writing any article one must have should try to include APCs in their research to think about the target journal, it will help an budgets and should check to see if fees are author to write properly and minimized extra waived for authors in developing countries. time. This article has been developed by INASP, an international development charity Readership in the UK, as an extension of the work carried One good way to select a target journal for out by the AuthorAID team. Visit inasp.info your paper is to think carefully about the and authoraid.info to learn about their work. audience: Who are likely to be the readers of your paper? What kind of journals do they References : read? How do you want to influence or 1. INASP Moodle, Targeting relevant impact them with your work? In some fields journals for publication a paper, Ravi of research, notably theoretical ones, the Murugesan, 2015 May. Available from audience may be global. However, some http://moodle.inasp.info/ research projects are strongly connected to 2. Jeffrey Beall Misleading metrics the local or regional context, or they address (Scholarly Open Access, updated local or regional priorities. An international regularly)

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3. The impact factor game. (PLOS Medicine, 2006) 4. Kai Simons The misused impact factor (Science, 2008) 5. Beware the impact factor (Nature Materials, 2013) 6. Arturo Casadevall and Ferric Fang Causes for the persistence of impact factor mania (mBio, 2014) 7. Jeffrey Beall Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open- access journals and Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open- access publishers (Scholarly Open Access, accessed 12 December 2014) 8. Jeffrey Beall Sudanese researcher falls victim to questionable publisher (Scholarly Open Access, 23 September 2014) 9. Ravi Murugesan For open access. Against deception (23 September 2014)

*Correspondence:

Dr. Md. Ashif Iqbal Associate Professor Dept. of Oral Pathology & Periodontology Update Dental College & Hospital, Dhaka E-mail: [email protected]