Evaluating Journals Before You Publish

• Is the journal within the top 5 entries on the first page of search results? Are there any scam alert postings?
  • Check multiple search engines (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo)
• If the journal is open access, is it in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)?
  • Verify all claims! Just because they say they're listed in DOAJ doesn't mean they actually are.
• Is the journal owned by other university or research libraries?
  • Check WorldCat
  • Check Journals Removed from DOAJ (a Google Doc; be sure to choose the correct tab)
• Who owns the journal website’s URL?
  • Check Whois.com or GoDaddy’s WHOIS domain database
• Does the ISSN check out in WorldCat?

• Can the title of the journal be confused with another journal?
  • May indicate a predatory journal (employs questionable publishing practices) or a hijacked journal (sometimes simply a website designed to solicit manuscript submissions and pocket the money)
• Characteristics of hijacked and predatory journals
  • Amateurish website that may mimic a legitimate one
  • Simple submission format and low-quality articles
  • Short peer-review timeline and ambiguous author fees
• Is the journal on a black list of potentially predatory or hijacked journals?
  • Beall’s List (Jeffrey Beall’s list was highly controversial and he stopped updating it in 2017; since then, it’s been updated anonymously)
  • Retraction Watch (tracks news and incidents of predatory publishing, plagiarism, falsified data, and peer-review scandals)
  • Cabell’s blacklist (a pay-to-view list to which UMSL does not subscribe)
  • Nonrecommended medical periodicals (includes popular magazines and is very subjective)
• Is the journal on a white list of trustworthy journals
  • Journals recommended by the Nurse Author & Editor group
  • Web of Science Master Journal List
  • JournalGuide (independent company of published researchers and software developers)
  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
  • National Library of Medicine (NLM) catalog (If the journal’s record says “Not currently indexed for MEDLINE,” it may be questionable.)
  • Ulrich’s Periodical Directory (2019 edition: 4 printed volumes behind TJ Library’s Public Service Desk)

• Are the members of the editorial board listed with their full names and institutional affiliations?
• Are they experts in their field?
  • Visit their academic/institution websites
• Does their information match what you can find about them online?
  • Check CVs, LinkedIn
  • Look for institution affiliations that may be misleading (e.g., journal website says Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, but LinkedIn says Weill Cornell Medicine in Doha, Qatar)

• Does the journal state whether it is peer reviewed or edited?
• Does it outline a review policy?
  • Peer review process can take 2–3 months. If timeline is only a few days or weeks, be wary.
• Types of peer review:
  • Common: Single-blind, double-blind, open
  • New/evolving: Transferable, collaborative, post-publication
  • For an explanation of each type, with pros and cons, see Wiley’s Types of Peer Review

• Is the journal website competently designed, functional, and well-edited? Some red flags:
  • Grammatical errors, misspellings, random capitalization
  • Broken links, missing/distorted images
  • Poor navigation, inconsistent or incomplete headers/footers
• Does the website use original language?
  • Check to see if portions of the site were copied verbatim from a different publisher’s website.
  • Paste a paragraph from the submission guidelines or peer review policy into a search engine.

• Does the journal claim to have an impact factor?
• Is the impact factor presented without qualifiers (e.g., an asterisk with a note in fine print saying it’s an “informal estimate”)
• Does it match what is found in Journal Citation Reports by Clarivate Analytics (previously Thomson Reuters)?
  • UMSL database
• Be alert for misleading or fake metrics, including:
  • Index Copernicus Value
  • Systemic Impact Factor
  • CiteFactor

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• Does the journal clearly state its business model and publishing policies?
  • Submission guidelines
  • Copyright, licensing, and re-use
  • Competing interests
  • Open access (gold vs. green)
    • Gold: Author publishes in an open access journal
    • Green: Author archives a version of his/her work in an open access repository (such as UMSL’s Institutional Repository Library), regardless of where it is published originally
  • Long-term preservation
• Does the journal clearly state how much money an author will pay to have each article published?

• Does the journal website contain a digital archive of its past issues, with links to full-text articles?
• Do the journal’s articles make sense?
  • Do they use correct methodology, have valid conclusions, etc.?
• Does the journal publish articles by a number of different authors?
  • Spot-check author affiliations

• Is the journal indexed in more than one subject database (e.g., CINAHL, PubMed/MEDLINE, PsycINFO)?
  • Search for the journal in the database’s list of publications.
  • Be aware that Google and ResearchGate don’t use editorial staff to select content.
  • Journal websites should know the difference between indexes, vendors, and directories.
    • Indexes include CINAHL, MEDLINE, and Academic Search Complete
    • Vendors include EBSCO, ProQuest, and Ovid
    • Directories include Ulrich’s, Cabell’s, and DOAJ
    • If the journal claims to be indexed in Ulrich’s, be wary.
• Does the journal publish articles by a number of different authors?
  • Spot-check author affiliations
• Does the journal website contain a digital archive of its past issues, with links to full-text articles?

• Does the journal clearly state how often its issues will be published each year? Does this match what you see in the archive?
• Has the journal been around long enough to publish more than 10 articles?
  • If not, check the quality of the articles
  • For new journals, value quality over quantity