Publishing a Journal Article

Select a journal that matches your article in terms of subject, scope and approach.  When choosing among similar journals, consider which one has the highest prestige or rank in your discipline or sub-field.

Once you have a journal in mind, be sure to visit the journal's website to read the Aims and Scope or Mission Statement. Here are some examples. 

• American Sociological Review
• Current Morphology
• Genetics in Medicine
• Journal of Statistical Distributions and Applications
• Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies

Be sure to note whether the journal

• follows a particular approach, theory or methodology 
• is aimed at a particular specialized audience. For example, academic researchers in psychology, not practicing psychologist

Multi-Disciplinary

• Web of Science
  Despite its name, WoS is a multidisciplinary resource. Search by keywords for your topic. At the results page, look at the Refine Results options on the left. Scroll down to the bottom and choose Select more options. When additional options display, choose Source Titles.  You'll see a list of titles that have published articles with the keywords you entered.
• Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
  Find a ranked list of journals in your discipline. Science and Social Sciences files from Web of Science are included. Instructional videos and printable instructions are available.
• Genamics JournalSeek
  A categorized database of over 75,000 journal titles, with basic information for each one.
• JournalGuide
  Multidisciplinary. For some titles, includes acceptance rate and time from admission to acceptance.
• Summon 
  The general search box on the library home page, Summon, offers options to limit to Peer-Review, by discipline, and by year. Search by keywords for your topic, then refine your search results to articles in peer reviewed journals published since 2010. Scan the result list for journal names.

Science and Health Sciences

• Springer Journal Selector
  The selector recommends the most appropriate journal from 2900 Springer and BMC titles, primarily science.
• JANE: Journal Author Name Estimator
  Enter your abstract or other key words and retrieve up to 50 suggested journals from the health sciences journals listed in the PubMed database.

Social Sciences

• Journal Reviewer
  More than 700 Social Science journals 
• Ulrichsweb
  Comprehensive directory includes journals in all subject areas, including titles in Humanities and Social Sciences that are not that are not included in Journal Citation Reports. Follow these step-by-step instructions to search by discipline.
   

Via Disciplinary Databases in all Subject Areas

• UBC Library Research Guides

Each guide lists databases for a particular discipline on the Articles or Journals tab. Search databases by keywords for your topic and note journal titles.

Virtually all journals forbid multiple submissions, so journal rankings can help you decide which journal to try first.

• Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is the most widely-used tool for ranking journals in Science and Social Sciences and an increasing number of humanities journals. Watch a training video or consult one of the printable guides to learn how to search by broad subject area or compare individual titles.
• Google Scholar Citations  
  Click on the three lines at the top of the homepage then choose Metrics from the drop-down menu.  Under Categories, choose a broad category and then on Subcategories.

The Subject Librarian for your discipline can help you find and use the most appropriate tools for ranking and selecting journals in your subject area.