Finding the best place for your journal article can be difficult. It is always best to do your homework and compare journals to make sure that you are submitting your precious manuscript to a reputable journal.
Things to consider:
For some more detailed information on finding a reputable journal that is appropriate for your research, see the 'Choosing where to publish' section of the 'Boost your academic profile' libguide.
Given the huge number of journals around, it can be hard to even draw up a shortlist of possible journals for your research article. As well as talking to colleagues and investigating journals that you read and cite papers from, there are some tools that will help narrow down your search.
One initial strategy is to conduct a document search in Scopus or Web of Science using keywords and phrases from your own manuscript. The results of this search could give you an indication of the journals that publish research in your research areas. It is also worth looking that the literature that you are citing in your paper - where has previous research on this topic been published?
If you are looking only for open access journals, there are also ways of searching for these by filtering your search results in bibliographic databases and journal comparison tools. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a useful tool for searching for fully open access journals.
When you've come up with a shortlist, don't forget to 'Think, Check, Submit' and to check out journal metrics and costs before you finally click on submit.
