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Journal Selection and Metrics

Tools for Journal Selection

  • Jane (Journal Author/Name Estimator)  Enter your article title and/or abstract of the paper in the box, and click on 'Find journals', 'Find authors' or 'Find Articles'. Jane will then compare your document to millions of documents indexed in Medline to find the best matching journals, authors or articles.
  • Think.Check.Submit Checklist From the organization website: "Think. Check. Submit. is a campaign to help researchers identify trusted journals for their research. It is a simple checklist researchers can use to assess the credentials of a journal or publisher."
  • Be iNFORMEd: Checklist A checklist developed by Duke University Medical Library & Archives to determine legitimacy for new and unknown journals.
  • Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to quality open access, peer-reviewed journals. Search or browse by subject area. Information about journals includes publisher name, keywords, language of publication, and whether the journal has article fees.
  • Enago Open Access Journal Provider: Enago’s Open Access Journal Finder (OAJF) safeguards you from predatory publishers by letting you find pre-vetted, quality open access journals using data provided by the DOAJ (above)
  • Elsevier Journal Finder  Elsevier Journal Finder uses smart search technology and field-of-research specific vocabularies to match your article to journals that are published by Elsevier (not all journals)
  • Springer Journal Suggester  Enter your manuscript title & abstract, and the Journal Suggester will search journals published by Springer and BioMed Central (not all journals)

Google Scholar Metrics

Google Scholar Metrics can illustrate how various journals compare within a given subject area.  This information can be very helpful when deciding which journal to submit an article to.  These journals are ranked by Google using their proprietary h-index calculations.  

To see journal rankings:

  • Go into Google Scholar 
  • click the three bars in the left upper corner
  • click Metrics

  • It will bring you to a screen with the overall top-ranked publications.  Look for the search icon (magnifying glass) in the upper right area and type in your subject area (i.e. Diabetes, or Nursing).  These should be large-scale subject areas that entire publications are devoted to.  Searching for a specific procedure or medication (such as CLABSI or tamiflu) will not return good results.
  • You will get a list of publications ranked by h5-index and h5-median.