-What are the sources of possible journal suggestions? -What are the questions to answer before submitting to a particular journal?

1. QUESTIONS TO ASK WHEN
CHOOSING A JOURNAL
FORTUNE EFFIONG
Director for Research, TORASIF

2. SOURCING FOR POSSIBLE JOURNALS
• FROM REFERENCE LIST:
• List out all the journals in your reference list. Screen them for suitability.
• ASK SUPERIORS IN YOUR FIELD:
• Ask your lecturers, supervisors or mentors in your field.
• Consider the recommended journals in your institution or lab.
• USE JOURNAL FINDERS:
• There are tons of journal finders on the web. They will require few details
about your manuscript and present possible journals.
• An example is Elsevier Journal Finder

3. IMPACT FACTOR
• What is the impact factor of this journal?

4. APC/OPEN AND CLOSED ACCESS POLICIES
• Does the journal require APC?
• Does it accept partial or full waiver? And under what conditions?
• Is the journal open access or subscription based?
• What kind of Open access: Diamond, Gold, Hybrid or Green Open
access?

5. TYPE OF ARTICLE PUBLISHED
• What type of article does this journal publish?
• Does it publish the type of article you wish to submit;
commentaries, Letters, Perspectives, etc?
• Is the type of article you want to submit based on invitations
ONLY?
• What is the word count and author’s guidelines for the articles?

6. JOURNAL INDEXING
• Is the journal indexed in reputable databases like scopus, web of
science, MEDLINE, Pubmed, etc?
• Is the journal indexed in DOAJ, SCImago, COPE etc?
• What is the Google Scholar Matrice (GSM) of the journal?

7. ACCEPTANCE RATE
• What is the acceptance rate of this journal?

8. PEER REVIEW
• Is this journal peer reviewed?
• Is the journal peer review process trustworthy?

9. AUDIENCE
• Who are the main audience of this journal?
• Is it local, continental or global?
• Who are its readers?
• Does the audience of this journal suit with my target audience?

10. PUBLICATION/REVIEW TIME?
• What is the peer-review time of this journal?
• What is the publication time of this journal?
• Are they suitable for me?

11. JOURNAL REPUTATION/EDITORIAL BOARD
• Who are the editors of this journal?
• Do they have verifiable profiles?

12. USE thinkchecksubmit.org CHECKLIST