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Publishing for Engineers

Choosing a Journal

Choosing a journal to publish with can seem overwhelming. Here are some recommendations for breaking this process up into logical steps.

1st: you'll want to narrow down your potential choices by asking yourself these questions:

  • What is the main focus of your article?
  • Who is your intended audience?
  • Do you want your work to be open access?
    • If so, do you have funds to pay any applicable APCs?

2nd: come up with a list of possible titles:

  • Where do your colleagues publish?
  • Which journals do you regularly read?
  • Which journals do you typically cite?
  • Do your colleagues or advisors have recommendations for appropriate journals for your article?
  • Read the journal's aims and scope to make sure your article would fit

3rd: start to further narrow things down to your first choice journal:

  • What is the journal's peer review policy?
  • What is their general timeline?
  • What rights do you retain to your work?
  • If the journal impact factor (IF) is a consideration, look up the IF for each journal you are considering
  • Are there any costs to publish?

You may also want to consider using a journal selection tool. Many publishers have a tool you can use to search their journals, and there are some publisher agnostic tools.

  • JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator)
    • Enter the title and abstract of your paper and Jane will compare your document to millions in PubMed and find the best matches.
  • IEEE Publication Recommender
    • Enter keywords, phrases or article title and IEEE will compare that to over 200 journals, 2000 conferences, or both to make recommendations on the best choices.
  • Elsevier Journal Finder
    • Journal matching tool has you share your abstract or keywords to find a list of appropriate journals.
  • Wiley Journal Finder
    • Enter your title and abstract to find matching Wiley journals.
  • B!SON
    • Use your title and abstract to find suitable OA journals from DOAJ and OpenCitations data.

Checking Journal Quality

Any time you consider publishing in any journal that is new to you, you should thoroughly evaluate that journal to determine if it's the right place to publish.

Things you should consider include:

  • Reputation - Look at recent publications to get a sense of the quality and ask your colleagues if they have opinions on the journal.
  • Look at the editorial board - Do you recognize the editors? Do they represent a variety of geographic and institutional affiliations? Do those editors list their association with the journal on their own personal websites?
  • Peer review - Look for information about the peer review process. Journals that promise unreasonably quick turnaround may not be doing quality peer review.
  • Discoverability - Is the journal indexed in DOAJ, Web of Science, or disciplinary indexes?
  • Fees - Any page charges or article processing charges (APCs) should be easy to find on the journal website. If the journal does not charge an APC, that information should also be prominent. Beware open access journals that do not have any information about fees or lack of fees on their website.
  • Copyright - Any fully open access journal, including those from major publishers, should allow authors to retain their copyright. If the journal requires an exclusive transfer of copyright or an exclusive license for publication and distribution, ask why.
  • Publishing ethics - Does the journal have a statement of ethics on their webpage along with information regarding policies related to research misconduct, plagiarism, or other ethical violations?

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