Identify Journals for Publication

Is your article the result of grant-funded research?

If so, be sure to check your funder's policies for article sharing requirements, and select a journal that will allow you to comply. For example, the NIH, NSF, and many other federal government agencies have public access mandates for articles resulting from grant-funded research.

For more information on funder policies, visit our guides on:

Define your publishing priorities before you search to help assess your options more quickly. If you identify multiple journals with the right general scope for your article, it can also help you narrow your options to find the one that best fits your needs.

Questions to consider include:

Are you prepared to share research data associated with your article? 

An increasing number of journals encourage or require authors to share data and other materials underlying their articles.

How important is the journal's average turnaround time from submission to publication?

If you need or want to publish your article within a certain time frame, try to find information about the journal's average time to publication.

• Check if the journal is included in the journal database Cabell’s (linked below), which includes average time to publication (as long as journals have chosen to share this information).

• Check the journal website. Some publishers, like PLOS, include this information on their websites.

• If all else fails, check multiple articles on the journal’s website to see if they include date information that can give you an idea of the average turnaround time. For example, some journals share the dates articles were received, revised, accepted, and/or made available online.

What is the journal's acceptance rate?

While a journal's acceptance rate is not a reliable indicator of the journal's quality or the quality of any individual article it publishes, journals with lower article acceptance rates are generally considered to be more prestigious.

• Check if the journal is included in the journal database Cabell’s (linked below), which includes journal acceptance rates (as long as journals have chosen to share this information).

• Check the journal website. Some publishers, like PLOS, include this information on their websites.

Where is the journal indexed?

Indexing journals in databases increases their discoverability and widens their readership. Review the journal's website for information about their indexing, or look the journal up in Ulrichsweb.

Do you want to make your article open access?

There are multiple options for making your article open access. Answering the following questions will help you define what kind of journals meet your priorities:

• Do you want to make your article open access immediately upon publication?
• Do you want to make the final published version of your article open access, or would you be okay with sharing a different version instead (for example sharing the final accepted manuscript through VCU's institutional repository Scholars Compass)?
• Do you have funding available to pay article publishing fees if they're required?

VCU Libraries and VIVA, Virginia’s academic library consortium, have agreements with some publishers that provide VCU authors with full coverage for open access publishing fees. Learn more about open access funding support.

Authors have multiple options to make their articles open access:

• Gold open access journals: when all of a journal's articles are published open access
• Hybrid open access journals: when a journal offers an open access publishing option for individual articles, subject to a publishing fee
• Green open access: when authors self-archive their works, for example, by adding a preprint to a disciplinary archive or sharing a post-print in an institutional repository like VCU Scholars Compass

Most journals allow some form of self-archiving, depending on what version of the article is shared and where it is shared.

• Preprint: the version that is submitted for peer review, which can usually be posted to preprint sites for early dissemination and peer review.
• Post-print: also known as the accepted manuscript, this version has incorporated all changes from peer review but has not yet been copyedited and formatted for final publication. Journals often allow this version to be shared on personal websites or institutional repositories like VCU Scholars Compass, usually subject to an embargo period.
• Version of record: the version that is published on the journal website. All other versions should link to this version. Unless the article is open access, sharing is restricted.