What is the better publication strategy, to go for the journals with the highest impact factor even if they are outside of your discipline or going for established and well known journals even if their IF is lower?
Obviously, high IF are impressive, but if I go for a journal with high IF that is outside my discipline, many of my peers and potential employers will never have heard of them despite their high IF. Other journals that have been around for a longer time and are well established in the field while only having a middle range IF might impress them more.
What do you think?
In my field (IR), some new / more innovative journals have actually achieved a very high IF (e.g. Security Dialogue, International Political Sociology), but would be considered by many in the field not as 'established' journals, since they are not around for that long or their editors not US based, etc. Here the IF actually helps to establish credentials for research that is not within the more or less narrow domains of the 'mainstream' discipline. Also, if someone has published in Political Geography, which is not strictly speaking an IR journal but in Geography, I think that truly counts, since it is recognised also within IR and has a high IF. Or one of the leading journals in Sociology. Maybe IR is simply more open to knowledge, I do not know. Hence, if I would like to reach an audience for my arguments that is in a neighbouring field, too, and for which there is a journal with high IF, even if many people in my own domain would not know that much about it, I would go for it. There is also a bonus for researchers who can show having passed the hurdles in different disciplines. As others mentioned, I would guess you would still have pieces for your 'own' discipline. By necessity then, this follows a mixed strategy.
If your peers haven't heard of the journals you are considering, then you might not be considering the most appropriate journals! This aside, I would suggest that you
start off by trying to consider your work objectively – is it exceptional? Are the results groundbreaking? Are you presenting a manuscript in an embryonic field of research? Does your work discuss a new method, contribute a completely new line of argument, revise existing thoughts on a topic, present surprising and substantial results,...? If the answer is that your paper only adds to the existing body of knowledge, I would suggest that you might consider those journals that publish research of a similar quality and the readers they reach – how specialised are the journals? How specialised will your paper be? Unless your future employer is in the academic or research world, you might be disappointed to find that the primary concern at your interview could be whether someone educated to PhD level is able to perform rather less exciting tasks than a PhD presents, or whether clear communication is going to be a problem.
Your manuscript is unlikely to be accepted by a topical journal that cannot attract readers to a paper on the topic you consider, so it would be deemed 'out of scope' – unless the work were of such widespread interest that an exception should be made. In the latter case, you might ask how the journal would be able to draw attention to your work, pointing out that it is of considerable potential interest, but would need to be marketed.
Hi Hans - a good response from Suzy.
There are many factors. The attached chapter proof may assist - especially the section on 'begin small and work your way up?' Your title is perhaps a little misleading in the respect that 'established' journals are often the journals with the higher IFs. They have 'been in the business longer' and had several shifts of editorial/administrative staff looking to improve journal processes and outcomes each time.
Thanks Suzy Lidstrom and Dean Whitehead for your answers and the helpful document!
From my experience, within my field (political science) there are several journals with mid-range IFs that have been around for a long time and have a good reputation. So others in the field will recognize them easily. But when one does interdisciplinary work, as I do, there is a wide range of journals with higher IFs, but since they are from other disciplines, they will hardly be recognized by peers. So my political science peers will probably not have heard of a journal in communication studies, although it might be a very successful ibe. Do you see the dilemma? What's your advice, high IF or high recognition within the field?
Maybe the well established will become high IF or IF will lose its impact? To publish it as a quality paper is important and the impact will come with time. It takes time to hear about some work. If possible to publish in IF then its great but too many going for IF leads to many being rejected or delayed for a long time. The same may happen to well established journals. What you publish can always be share with peers directly or here on RG. Thats not a problem.
Hi,
The main function in sending an article to a journal is to find a journal that covers subjects in your research area. A high impact journal that is not in your field will return your paper immediately without even sending it to reviewers. Besides, the members of scientific community of your field will not read your paper if it is not written in an established disciplinary journal, and will not relate to it or cite it.
Hi,
Its all depends on the primary purpose of your purpose for publishing the paper and your goal. Also, I assume all the journals you are talking about are SCI or SSCI or ACI.
If your aim is to get promoted and the impact factor of your paper is more favorable for that that purpose then go for high impact journal.
If the aim is to get your research out there and have it read by a lot of researchers, then get established journal.
In conclusion, most high impact journals that are indexed are actually established journals. It is only fake journals that gives false high impact factor.
Define "better" :) there are positive and negative sides to both. Ideally you should go the highest IF in your area which will usually be the most established journal and the hardest to squeeze into. A lot depends on the national academic system you are under - some value IF above anything else others emphasize disciplinary and thematic consistency.
I agree with Amanda Machin and Usman Atique
. The obsession with IF is a pitty. To a certain degree, it disincentivizes creative and exploratory work. Particularly in political sciences, daring normative, and innovative work often does not get the appreciation it deserves. I'm really drawn to journals like Constellations, for example, but the rationality of building a CV around high IF suggests otherwise.
Obviously it would be better to go for established, renowned journal with medium impact factor within the research disciplines.
In my field (IR), some new / more innovative journals have actually achieved a very high IF (e.g. Security Dialogue, International Political Sociology), but would be considered by many in the field not as 'established' journals, since they are not around for that long or their editors not US based, etc. Here the IF actually helps to establish credentials for research that is not within the more or less narrow domains of the 'mainstream' discipline. Also, if someone has published in Political Geography, which is not strictly speaking an IR journal but in Geography, I think that truly counts, since it is recognised also within IR and has a high IF. Or one of the leading journals in Sociology. Maybe IR is simply more open to knowledge, I do not know. Hence, if I would like to reach an audience for my arguments that is in a neighbouring field, too, and for which there is a journal with high IF, even if many people in my own domain would not know that much about it, I would go for it. There is also a bonus for researchers who can show having passed the hurdles in different disciplines. As others mentioned, I would guess you would still have pieces for your 'own' discipline. By necessity then, this follows a mixed strategy.
Presentation How to Select a Trusted Journal, by: Asst. Prof. Dr. Emad K....
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Always high impact factor should not be a criteria to publish research article in particular area. Established journal some time better to publish your work.
Coverage and scope of subject always may be important factor to publish the academic work. this
In my own experience it is always a good idea to go for a high impact factor. First, IF is a general measurement of "quality" - not without problems, but we basically do not have anything better. So also possible employers will see publications in high IF journals as something positive (it is not that difficult for them to check journals in which you have published if they are interested in you although they do not need to know them). Second, the better the journal, the faster the response/reviews and the better the feedback. Of course, there is an issue of a desk rejection when you will not get any feedback, but this can happen with any journal. Third, good journal (i.e. journals with high IF) are looking for innovative and interesting papers - because they can choose those among many many submissions and they want to stand out. In my personal experience, journals with lower IF follow more traditional formula.
You can start with the list of journals with IF and look for a journal that publishes a) articles related to the topic of your paper, or to the area you research on, b) articles that are close to your theoretical and conceptual preferences. For example, it does not make sense to submit a supersophisticated quantitative paper to Journal of Democracy (well, most of the articles are commisioned anyway but not all of them) while it can be interesting for Electoral Studies. While a case study does need to be attractive enough for Comparative Political Studies, it can be relevant for East European Politics and Societies. Therefore, I recommend not to look just at IF but also consider the content of the journal.
After publishing some articles in established moderate IF journals everyone should also go for publishing in high impact journals. I mean researchers should go in a balanced way by publishing in established renowned journals and also in high impact journals.
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Dear Friends and Colleagues of RG
Both strategies: High impact factor or established journal - have different functions, other positive aspects and other limitations are not fully comparable. Which strategies are considered to be more appropriate depends on the privities who the researcher writing the scientific papers deems more important. In the context of this issue an important question arises: Do you publish in scientific journals with a high Impact Factor but representing related or other fields of knowledge against the scientific specialty of the researcher who sends his scientific texts for publication? Do you, however, publish in journals with a lower Impact Factor, which represent the field of knowledge in which the researcher specializes and writes his scientific texts? Which strategy is chosen by individual researchers, scientists and research and teaching staff of the university depends on whether the prime points are collected IF for the institution, which the researcher affirms, or more important is the citation of written texts in a given field, but more important is the issue of publishing in magazines whose titles are closely correlated with the problems of scientific texts written by the researcher.
Best wishes
Preferably, You should definitely publish in Your own scientific field, even if the IF is lower. It is important for You to disseminate Your research among colleagues from Your discipline, being cited by them and thus, to improve Your reputation and position in the field to achieve career growth. Of course, sometimes it is easier to publish a paper in a new journal with higher IF, but it may not contribute to strengthening reputation as much as paper in an established journal with lower IF.
I think that better going for established and well known journals even if their IF is lower, it is achieved to give my idea's inside my discipline.
In my opinion, the most important is to publish in open access journals to better disseminate our work. Of course, the optimal situation is when a journal is well established in our field. Journals in social sciences having high IF usually are not available in open acess what means that some scholars, especially in developing countries, have limited access to their content. It is obvious that authors publishing their works in journals with higher IF may be more respected in the academia but, to my mind, we should do research to widen the general knowledge and thus share our findings with the others. Not to count for more respect.
It is better to publish in an established journal even if they have low impact factor
Tricky, but important question, without a possible "yes" or "no" answer. I think both is important. But obviously, also established journals can have high impact factorsm as mentioned above. I guess doing both is good, but will depend on your goal: who do you want to read your writing?
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