What is potentially more rewarding (professionally): aiming to publish in a higher impact factor journal with broad readership or aiming to publish in a specialized journal with a lower impact factor but with readership which specializes in your field (and related fields), making them more likely to cite your article?
Ali - depends on context. You ask two things really - what is better and what is most rewarding. They can both be the same thing, of course, depending on if you mean 'better' personally or institutionally - and the same for 'rewarding'. Let's take 'personal' first. I would argue that both publication scenarios are equal. One you gain more impact from - and the other more citation from. However, that is an assumption. Does publishing in a specialised journal mean more citation that a high impact journal? It can just as easily work the other way. At the 'institutional' level - it depends on what metric and/or value the institution favours most. Is it IF or citation count - or both? My suggestion, especially to my Higher Degree students, who often focus on clinical specialisations and national health agendas (that are internationally comparable and transferable) is to try and target both an international and broad journal (more likely the high impact journal) and a national-focus and specialised discipline article (more likely the lower impact journal) - but better for demonstrating 'national impact' which is another important factor - alongside impact and citation.
it's better to publish in a journal which is specialized in your field. There is no need publishing a paper if it can't reach the target population. However, if you really want to publish in a higher impact factor journal then go for the ones related to your field.
Ali - depends on context. You ask two things really - what is better and what is most rewarding. They can both be the same thing, of course, depending on if you mean 'better' personally or institutionally - and the same for 'rewarding'. Let's take 'personal' first. I would argue that both publication scenarios are equal. One you gain more impact from - and the other more citation from. However, that is an assumption. Does publishing in a specialised journal mean more citation that a high impact journal? It can just as easily work the other way. At the 'institutional' level - it depends on what metric and/or value the institution favours most. Is it IF or citation count - or both? My suggestion, especially to my Higher Degree students, who often focus on clinical specialisations and national health agendas (that are internationally comparable and transferable) is to try and target both an international and broad journal (more likely the high impact journal) and a national-focus and specialised discipline article (more likely the lower impact journal) - but better for demonstrating 'national impact' which is another important factor - alongside impact and citation.
It is very important to publish in a trusted, indexed, and referred journals to increase your visibility sir.
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