Library Guides: Journal Publishing: Choosing a journal

Peer Review

Peer review is a process of subjecting articles to a rigorous review process. Experts in the field will read the articles for accuracy, authority and originality and suggest any changes or revisions that need to be made before the article can be published.

ACS Reviewer Lab
Free online course and video tutorials for learning to do peer review.
Springer Author and Reviewer Tutorials
How to Perform a Peer Review - Wiley

Identifying and choosing a journal

Things to consider:

What are the most appropriate journals in my subject area?
What type of articles do they publish and do they match mine?
What is the reputation of the journal?
Is the journal peer reviewed?
What are the journal’s copyright policies? Does it offer open access options?

An "about the journal" page is a good place to start investigating the journal. This page will list the editor-in-chief, associate editors and editorial board, provide a statement on the scope and audience for the journal, the types of articles published, the publication frequency of the journal, what kind of peer review process is followed, and other information that can be helpful.

Here are some examples of "about the journal" pages:

Journal Directories

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.
Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory
Ulrich's records provide data points such as ISSN, publisher, language, subject, abstracting & indexing coverage, full-text database coverage, tables of contents, and reviews written by librarians
& more less...
Listings of currently published journals, newsletters, and annuals, as well as discontinued publications. Includes information about which databases index the content.
Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA)
Most reputable open access journals belong to the Open Access Scholarly Publishers’ Association (OASPA)
Think, Check, Submit
Provides an easy-to-use checklist designed to help you identify which journals in your discipline are trustworthy.
Beall's List of Potential Predatory Publishers
List with updated additions of potentially predatory publishers to avoid.

Subject Specialists

Chemistry and Geophysical Sciences Librarian
Andrea Twiss-Brooks
Regenstein 103; 773-702-8777

Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics Librarian
Jenny Hart
Crerar Library; 773-702-7569

Business and Economics Librarian
Greg Fleming
JRL 100B; 773-834-8987

Tools to Measure Journal Impact

Journal Citation Reports This link opens in a new window
Offers an Impact Factors, and Eigenfactors and Article Influence Scores for science and social science journals.
Provides citation data on scholarly journals for purposes of evaluation and comparison.

Scopus Journal Analyzer
Compare multiple journals' impact by different measures including: CiteScore, SJR (Scimago Journal and Country Rank), and SNIP (source normalised impact per paper)
Metrics Toolkit
Use this tool to find metrics that will This toolkit helps you navigate different research metrics including web metrics and altmetrics to evaluate the impact of research.