Where to Publish: Choosing a Journal for Your Scholarship

Scholarly articles can be published in many different journals, and no single venue is best for every project. The “right” journal depends on your topic, methods, audience, career stage, and any funder or institutional requirements. This guide offers practical questions and tools to help you identify journals that are a good fit for your manuscript and avoid venues that may harm the visibility or credibility of your work.

Publishing practices differ across disciplines, so it is important to consult your department or school evaluation document, talk with colleagues, and review guidance from relevant professional associations. Their expectations around journal prestige, impact measures, open access, speed to publication, and co-authorship will shape which venues are most appropriate for you.

Use the questions and tools on this page to create a short list of potential journals, then explore the later pages to evaluate quality, costs, and rights in more detail.

Thinking through the questions that follow will help you identify what you need from a journal and narrow your search to venues that best support your scholarly goals.

• What is the main contribution of your article?

  • New empirical findings, theoretical innovation, methodological work, replication, case study, teaching or practice-based contribution?
     

• Who is the primary audience?

  • Specialists in your subfield, a broader disciplinary audience, practitioners, policymakers, or an interdisciplinary readership?
     

• What type of article is it?

  • Original research article, review article, short communication, methods article, case report, commentary?
     

• Are there constraints you must meet?

  • Funder mandates for open access or specific licenses
  • Institutional or departmental expectations for journal rankings, impact measures, or indexing
  • Co-author or grant timelines (e.g., you need faster review/publication)
     

• How important are the following for you in this project?

  • Time from submission to decision
  • Time from acceptance to publication
  • Open access availability
  • Article processing charges (APCs)
  • Journal prestige or impact metrics

Before investing time in a submission, review the questions below to see how well the journal’s scope, audience, and article types align with what you’ve written.

• Scope & aims

  • Does the journal’s stated scope match your topic, methods, and article type?
  • Are recent articles similar in topic and approach?
     

• Audience & discipline

  • Is the journal read by the people you most want to reach?
  • Is it disciplinary, interdisciplinary, or oriented toward practice?
     

• Article types & length

  • Does the journal accept the type of article you are writing (e.g., review, case study, methods paper)?
  • Do your word count, figures, and tables fall within the journal’s limits?
     

• Practical details

  • Are the submission instructions clear?
  • Does the journal provide typical timelines for review and publication?
  • Are there APCs or other author fees, and are they clearly stated?