What journal should I publish in?
Publishing strategically starts with choosing the right journal. Explore how to align your publishing choices with what matters most, whether that means achieving impact within academia or influencing audiences beyond it.
Publishing with purpose
Researchers often prioritise publishing without first clarifying what they hope to achieve. Linking your motivation to your strategy helps you choose a journal wisely, avoid predatory publishers and maximise impact.
Step 1: Define your goals
Are you aiming for academic recognition, career advancement or real-world impact? Do you want to reach a specialist audience or a broader community?
Step 2: Match your goals to journal selection
For example, you might choose a high-impact journal for career advancement, an open-access journal for wider reach or a practitioner or policy journal for real-world impact.
Think about the destination early on; that will tell you what you need to focus on and what areas of your research will be important for the paper. What is the issue that people are trying to solve in my area? How does my research speak to that? How do I speak to that?
What makes a quality journal?
Choosing a quality journal is essential for credibility and impact. Key indicators of journal quality include:
Peer review
A quality journal clearly explains the type of review (e.g. single-blind, double-blind, open), how reviewers are selected and the criteria they use. Typical timelines range from four to 12 weeks; extremely short reviews may signal poor quality.
Editorial standards
Quality journals follow ethical guidelines and often have a COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) membership. Ensure the journal lists the editors' names, their institutional affiliations, and contact details for transparency.
Indexing
Reputable journals are indexed in major databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, and PubMed, which boosts visibility and signals credibility.
Journal metrics
Metrics, like Impact Factor and CiteScore, show how often articles in a journal are cited. Based on these metrics, journals are ranked into quartiles within their subject area. Publishing in Q1 or Q2 journals, considered top-tier journals, is often more prestigious and can strengthen funding or promotion applications.
Where to find journal metrics and quartile rankings:
Learn more about metrics.
When choosing where to publish, I prioritise the journals I read most and aim high, submitting first to top-tier journals in my field. I’ve been desk rejected many times, but I treat those as opportunities to improve the manuscript. After revising, I submit to a second-choice journal that’s still reputable and well-aligned with my work.
Publishing in top journals
Top-tier journals like Nature or Science are highly selective, with acceptance rates around 10 percent. They publish research with broad appeal, clear writing, and a strong narrative, often on public-interest issues, major technological breakthroughs, or widely useful data and resources.
Science and Nature are not your typical academic journals; they are magazines. If your research is sound but doesn't tell a good story, then it should not go here. You need to tell a story, like an elevator pitch, that your grandparents can understand. How do you tell your story to people in your field, but also in other fields?
To help guide your selection, refer to the University’s Top‑ranked journals list.
Publishing for a broader impact
If your research seeks to create impact beyond academia, your publishing choices should reflect that goal, even if traditional metrics are not the primary consideration.
Consider options such as:
- Open access: Makes your work freely available to anyone, increasing visibility and accessibility for practitioners, policymakers and the public. Learn more about Open access.
- Preprints: Share early versions of your research before peer review to accelerate knowledge exchange and invite feedback. Learn more about preprints.
- Local or Indigenous journals: Support community-driven scholarship and ensure your work is accessible and relevant to local or Indigenous audiences.
- Publishing null or negative results: Contributes to transparency and reduces publication bias, helping others avoid repeating unproductive research paths.
- Broader outputs like policy documents, blog posts and NTROs: Translate research into formats that influence practice, policy and public understanding, extending impact beyond academic circles.
As a Pacific researcher, I often find that the journals I want to publish in aren't formally recognised. My publishing strategy is to place about 50% of my work in localised journals and 50% in larger Australasian ones. If we stop publishing in domestic journals, they risk disappearing.
Learn more about Research impact and engagement.