For the same number of papers, is it better to publish in different journals (averaged fewer papers per journal) or publish in a few journals (averaged more papers per journal)?
Does anyone have an opinion? Pros and cons?
Thanks Metodi. I do agree with the view that IF has relatively little meaning when applied to individual scientists.
Let's say in the same tier of journal, will you prefer to submit to the same journal which potentially builds a good relationship with the editorial team or submit to different journals?
I am wondering more of the difference in 3 persons of 10 publications each: the first publishes all 10 in one journal; the second publishes 10 in 10 journals; the third publishes 10 in 3 journals (3-4 per journal).
Interesting comments. Thanks.
Another idea which could be important in some cases is that getting experience with more different journals may bring new opportunities. Other editors may be much more positive to papers which have been rejected earlier.
One of the advantages of publishing in the same journal ask is that you more quickly gain a reputation within a field-at least amongst the people who read that journal. In specialized fields, it can be very important to publish in the specialty journal; partly for this reason and partly because you are more confident of hitting your target audience. Another advantage is that you more quickly learn the nuances of how that journal works in terms of its priorities, format and typical responses and what they really mean.
One of the disadvantages of publishing in the same journal is that some grant reviewers may question this behavior; particularly, if at some point later you would get invited to the editorial board. It is not that uncommon for people who publish in a journal and get a reputation for high-quality work to subsequently be join the editorial board. However, as soon as this happens it looks like you are sending your work to a journal you are ready have an alliance with. Of course, this is not true. A disadvantage is that you do not learn about other journals and how they might be good platforms for your work.
In my experience it made sense to start off with using one Journal fairly often; while experimenting with a small range of others. As time has gone on I have expanded my number of journals and will search out for new ones depending on the work. You should consider the
1. quality of the journal (so external reviewers will more easily recognize the quality of your work),
2. the type of work that the journal typically publishes (there is no sense sending qualitative research to some journals who do not know what it is),
3. your target audience versus the audience of the Journal (so that your message will get to the right type and number of people people)
4. the quality of your work and whether you are aiming at the appropriate level (not all of our papers are the best design and the most notable finding so we may need to share work in different venues depending on the nature of the work)
5. the Journal's track record in terms of prompt review and publication-this can be particularly important for junior investigators who need to build their CV early
Very Interesting comments, Joy . Thank you.
I fully agree with everything you write. However, in Social Science journals is very difficult.
This depends on many factors i think. At mid-carreer and after, it can look very strange if one's all major publications are in 1-2 journals, especially if the researcher's field is not a highly-specialised one. But at the early stages of one's carrier, i do not think it is important to "diversificate" publications.
You may keep publishing in a few number of familiar journals if:
-your research field has not changed for a long time;
-your research activity is relatively low;
-those journals are among well-reputed sources.
You probably look for new journals in a broader spectrum if:
-your research interest/field has changed or been expanded;
-your manuscript has been rejected from the core journals in your field;
-you think your work deserves different audiences.
I think publish in different Journals is better, even some university (if you need the publication for the promotion). they will accept only half of your publication to be in same journal
I do agree with most of you that there is a comfort of familiar or journals that are receptive to your work but it is really how much should we put ourselves out of this comfort zone.
I do agree with Joy that one may eventually be invited to the editorial committee of your favourite journal. In fact, I've seen some people in so many editorial committees that I am wondering where they can even publish in.
Excluding prolific persona like Paul Erdos, I am wondering what is the comfy number of journals in a researcher/academic's CV?
Michael, what do you really mean by "I do understand the 'comfort' of publishing in the journal I like best [who hasn't done that], but this restriction would be a dead end". Why is this a dead end?
I agree with Michael Pfeil to a great extent. It also depends on whom you need to impress. For credibility, publish in a peer-reviewed journal with a good reputation for reliability. You may be tempted to publish in the journal with the most elite reputation or the highest impact factor among your options. That will impress your chair until, after a few years, you find it has not been well cited.
My first rule of thumb is to look at the journal most cited in the article you wrote. That journal is where you are likely to find the highest density of readers for that article. In the long run, you will want to publish where you will be most read and cited. This optimizes your personal impact on the field and thus your reputation. This criterion may well lead you to publish in several related journals.
Consider also if roughly the same article can be repurposed for two audiences, for example theorietica and applied or scholarly and public. The article should be largely reorganized, of course, but that way you may begin to gain more than one audience for your work.
On another point to increase citing, work hard on the key word list and the words in your title and abstract. You want to show up on the search engines for those finding your article through bibliographic query.
Opinions differ. I myself, would like to chose journals from different fields and disciplines. It shows that my orientation is broader. usually it is appreciated in our world of social sciences. However, it may work against you in the culture of jealousy and nepotism in the Dutch academic world. In such a small world with a number of old-fashioned old-timers, you better only publish in a few journals that they know and may read. I am not doing this, because I am looking for a broader audience.
Also Impact factor does not tell anything in my opinion. It only say that these journals are cited more, because they have a larger readership. Well, the may be thematic and generalistic journals. The true specialist journals, in small subject, or small focus area, have smaller readership and less readers. But this does not mean that they are qualitatively less. The specialist journals are usually higher in quality.
In my country (Italy) I have to found the better compromise between citations and IF. In Italy a pubblication is classified as A (the best) when is published in a journal included the top 20% for IF of the ISI sector and in the first 40% of tge mot cited paper of the sector, or, if the paper is published in a journal with IF in the first 40%, must be in the 20% of the most cited paper of the sector. Seem to me a good idea to offer an alternative to the rough IF. Absolute value of IF is not considered at all. Scientist are compared only within a sector. I'm an agronomist, and I'm compared only with agronomist, and not with, e.g. with specialist in genetic, IN any case, I prefere a paper with a lot of citation respect a paper with hgh IF, even if in my experience as a evaluator I found a good correlation between the cumuled IF, H index and total n umber of citation.
Pros: If you publish in different journals, you can get different editorial persons as Jury and your content can reach different audience of a particular field.
Cons: If you publish in a few journals than any one particular journal, will receive quick acceptance; but your idea can be shrunk in a particular node only; hence publish in different journals is the best way. And the impact factor is changing in every year depends on the circulation.. etc. Hence don't bother about impact factor. If is ISSN, then it will enough.
I think Mr Micheal is quite right , as because - for a particular manuscript one has to find out a journal of similar scope for publication. Moreover, now a days there has been dedicated journals on each and every micro-topics. So, as far as the thought content is concerned, I would go for the journal having similar scope and having reasonable impact factor. However, individual perceptions may differ but one one shouldn't compromise the quality.
The discussion has actually moved from the original question to a wider topic of journal selection.
Here is an additonal question to most of you who wrote about journal audience.
Do you really feel that citation of your papers depends on who are the audience of the journal? I mean that those who cite articles are mostly not those who are the members of the society which publishes or supports the journal and its official 'readers'. Through all modern indexing systems articles are reached no matter in what journals they are published. This is an alternative view I suggest.
From your experience, how these two sources of citing publications, say 'audience-based' and 'database-driven' are balanced in modern bibliometrics?
I am agreeing with the views of Prof. Nachimuttu. Particularly in social science limiting to particular journals not advisable as per my view. Besides researchers and academicians, other people who want to acquire knowledge for self and competitive purpose will get benefit,if you contribute our thoughts in different journals.
You better choose the right journal for the article.A thesis can be split in to many sections for example A thesis on pharmaceutical chemistry: The drug design part and the synthesis can be put up in chemistry oriented journal. The study about the pharmacological activity and toxicity could be put up in pharmacology based journal. Donot take into account the impact factor because now-a-days one of the conditions in most of the journal is to quote two or more or at the least two reference of their
journal. So impact factors are not a proper measure to merit the journals.
Dear Maurice ,
To me our publication remains in the similar journal ,it offers an opportunity to view our publication in the line with other authors & it can certainly help readers to draw a line of decarmation & it may also help us to view our mode for comparative study.
It would be better that our publication in different journal matching with the different sort of articles ,it helps us to modify & review our publication by selecting a compartive mode.
I for one is totally against to copied out any of publication as i believe that our life & every of our Action are nothing but the research process of our work.
I have merely express my views & nothing more.
Thanks
Rohit.M.Parikh
When published several scientific papers on a topic, what is the target?
1) The most important: publish "science" for anothers colleagues. Obviously you must select journals with peer review. And you must select journals wich are included in scientific platforms like WOK, Scopus, ACM , Nature, Springer, PubMed, etc, because is in these platforms where the researchers look for papers
2) To get an high academic value. So, for that is essential to publish in journals with high impact factor (ISI JCR or SCIMAGO SJR)
3) Disseminate widest possible our paper. So you must publish in Open Access journal. There are Open access journals with an IF
4) Enlarge the number of academic researchers who follow us and can cite our paper. So for that the better is publish in a generic scientific journal with high Impact Factor like Nature or Science, for example.
Tatiana, I think it is difficult to get actual statistics to decide between audience-based and database-driven.
In my opinion precise knowledge of the submission process and particularities of certain journal brings higher proportion of succesful admissions than more or less regular changing of various journals. Personally I prefer publishing in restricted number of journals.
This is an interesting question because, in theory, if you write fewer articles then anyone who cites your work will have to cite one of a smaller number of articles: thus you will have more articles that are highly cited. This might mean that your own h-index score is higher.
However, if you publish many articles then you can get your research findings out there more quickly and you can reach the audiences of all those different journals, thus potentially attracting more attention and thus citations. And to boost an h-index score you need a number of publications too.
Publishing more articles can be a good strategy if your performance is being measured by the number of research outputs you produce. Individual h-index scores are not so popular amongst research performance assessors (heads of department, job interview panels, national research assessment processes, etc), but "productivity" is of interest. The measure of quality of that productivity could be which journals you have published in, which might be based on the impact factor or the general reputation of the journal.
In theory, it is easier to publish more articles in lesser quality journals. Hence the discussion here about choosing journals, because the implication in having fewer articles published is that they will be in the higher quality journals, and that the higher quality journals will publish longer articles (but take longer to share your findings).
Ultimately, I would advise researchers to take into account what it is they are writing about and who needs to know that, and then to consider which journal(s) can take their article. However, the researcher should also make sure that publication is not the end of the process: the researcher will need to promote his/her work, too. Attendance at conferences, blog articles, tweeting, discussion boards can all help to build a profile that will attract more attention for the work, if it is of high quality.
The work itself must be of high quality and that is the most important point. So if you know that you're stretching your findings to make two articles that are a bit weak, but you could make one really strong, high quality article, then I would say you should ideally choose to publish one article and then find other ways of reaching other audiences.
Jenny, in some countries like Australia, federal funding to the university is tagged "partly" (I do not know the weightage) of number of papers published.
I also know of a lot of people with the philosophy of "unless it is published in well-known journals like Nature, Science, Cell, ACM Computing Surveys, it ends up being the number that seems to matter - at the very least, not many people know how or can judge diverse publication records or even in different fields but everyone knows how to count".
In fact, I had read somewhere (I cannot remember where that is) that the take-home message for a number of researchers/PIs is that just publish as many as possible without being guilty of salami-slicing without doubt.
@"Tatiana Andreeva · 36.21 · National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
The discussion has actually moved from the original question to a wider topic of journal selection.
Here is an additonal question to most of you who wrote about journal audience.
Do you really feel that citation of your papers depends on who are the audience of the journal?"
In the Social sciences a paper has a higher chances of getting cited if 1- It deals with very general and often superficial stuff. 2- If it is very controversial.
It is different in other fields
It seems safe enough to say neither publishing 20 papers in 1 journal nor 20 papers in 20 journals is optimal nor the way to go. Hence, is there any empirical guidelines on this? Is there even an equation?
So far I've heard and summarized the following:
1. No more than 1/2 the publication records in 1 journal.
2. One high-ranked journal + 1 mid-ranked journals.
3. Choose journals based on the nature of the paper - methodology papers, data papers etc.
4. Choose journals based on audience.
5. More than 2 journals as a means to assemble our own "scientific jury".
6. Do not sit in every editorial committee of journals one publishes in.
Any other empirical guidelines that we can take-home?
its always better to publish articles,closely related to the work then hif journal one...i cant publish my polymer membrane research work in HIF..or journals holding HIF belongs to other areas of research...i.e cell, nature...etc.....its purely my feel....
A further thought on the original question: I'm not sure what you mean about different journals vs similar journals exactly, but I wonder if it is about developing a publishing strategy that crosses disciplines. I have been asked where is best to publish by a social sciences researcher, who can publish in politics journals where there is less of a tradition of citation and therefore lower impact factors, but who could also present his research differently and publish in business journals and thereby have articles in journals with higher impact factors.
The problem with this strategy is that his research would still not be central to the business researchers' interests and so would not be cited very much by them. If his article is classed as a business one, it would appear in the lowest quartile of citations per article for that discipline, so it does him no favours to publish in a business journal even if it does have a higher impact factor, if the measure is the number of citations his article achieves.
So, if your question is about whether it is beneficial to publish in journals that are peripheral to your own discipline, well then it depends on why you might do that. If you are being measured according to whether your work appears in a high impact factor journal then this could be worth your while. If you are being measured by number of citations for your article(s), adjusted for the subject category and the expected citation rate for the journal(s) in which you are published then it seems not to be a good idea. But if your primary reason for publishing in journals that are less central to your subject area is because your research is crossing over into that discipline and you want to reach audiences in that discipline, then of course you should give it a try.
The original question also begs the question: "How specialized do you want to be?" Highly specialized research may only find acceptance in one journal, because that is the only one in the field. Cross-disciplinary research may find acceptance in many journals, provided that the paper is tailored for the individual journal that you are targeting. Aim for the visible journal, not the unseen audience.
My belief is that a paper accepted in a "lower class journal" is better than a paper rejected by a "high class journal"!
As a rule, I deeply regard the organizers of the conference which I'm going to visit.It doesn't matter if it's a "lower or high class" journal.Who can define a quality of the journal, in the long run? It depends both on my interests and the tolerance, qualification and preferences of the peers . The community of like-minded personalities can appreciate my paper, discuss it, give valuable advises and reasons for improving my work. It's so excited, it's success and happiness.It's the important moment to further reflection, creation and inspiration.I think the process of real communication is the way to progress.They approve my hard work, they share my points of view and I believe that the highly qualified organizers will give a relevant mark to my paper. It's the greatest experience in my self-perfection. You feel you are not alone in our global village.Many men many minds. Rejected work is a valuable experience too. It gives food for thought. It's the beginning of your growth.
In practice there is always a mismatch between the closest journal to your interests and your precise interests. You patch up that mismatch, and then they usually accept your paper.
It's very important to find a common ground, mutual agreement, "to reduce fractions to the same denomination". Surely. There is no limit to perfection.
A caveat: I hope an advocate that in the future the Academy will not have to rely on journals that required our institutions to pay outrageous amount of money to have access to them.
The choice between a few similar journals or different journals is not about variety but about reputation.
I recommend two approaches depending on where you are in your career:
1. For a tenure-track professor:
If you are in this case, you want to be in those journals that have a high reputation in your field. Sour aim is to get into those outlets. If you cannot get into those outlets then go to the second-tier journals and move down the ladder until you get your paper published. Make sure nonetheless that the topic of your paper we reach the audience that you want to read it
2. For a tenured professor:
This is where I would advocate moving away from subscription-based journals towards open-based journals of relevance to our fields. As tenured professors we have the freedom to publish or work without being penalized by not having them in the top tier journals. My hope that as more and more of us move to open journals little by little will we chip away the stronghold the subscription journals have over our work. It would also be through our contribution to those open journals that they will gain a high reputation eventually substituting the subscription base journals.
The above discussions are informative as well confusing also, but is there any method to know the authenticity of a research article which is published in an peer reviewed journal. Or it is because of some objectionable activities. Please comment on this
I remember Mayakovsky: "Like a horse and a camel are animals of various breed" Sorry for my "bad French",- to Ostap Bender. In other words, my organizers of the conferences and the leaders (I think, starry leaders) of the international journals were perfect, tolerant and wise. May be I'm a lucky dog. They regard every human being. It concerns my conferences in Moscow State University, Yaroslavl Pedagogical Institute, Voronezh State University, Indiana University, Illinois University, Connecticut University, Kansas University. I absolutely agree with dr.pooja Bhosie.
@dr. pooja Bhosle : Trust the authenticity of the peer reviewed journals, until you or the newspapers prove that someone has fabricated data.
The publication of articles in smaller numbers and in different magazines can represent the rich diversity of themes explored by the research group. This diversity can demonstrate the ability of the supervisor (group leader) of ability to understand problems and solve them in a way, perhaps, fast, efficient and consistent. For me, a great example of diversity and efficiency in themes explored is the example of the great Professor George M. Whitesides (Department of Chemistry, Harvard University). However, if the head of the group does not have certain skills, for sure, the researcher and his team have many problems to be solved and methodologies inefficient and possibly data (answers) insufficient to find consistent explanations for the problem. Unlike, publish more articles in fewer magazines can reveal centralization of the work of researchers in a few lines of research. However, this centralization allows us to affirm that it is centered in a few, but major research objectives in these lines. Perhaps these publications closely linked estajam representing the continuity of the work, the search for understanding of every inch of the problem.
This question becomes less important, because journal impact becomes less important, see https://www.researchgate.net/post/There_is_a_weakening_relationship_between_the_impact_factor_and_papers_citations-what_do_you_think
Actually the original question is not about publishing in journals of high impact factors or not but more of whether to concentrate manuscripts to a few journals or spread them out to many journals, and all the journals in consideration do not have impact factors...
Putting all your work into one journal means you only have one set of referees, rules and referencing styles to contend with! Putting your work in many journals means that for a while you can publish bits of your discoveries (chapters) without anyone stealing the big idea of how it all fits together! In practice, each time you prepare a paper you are thinking of the best destination for it.
@Ian, so what you are saying is essentially to diversify your readers so that the big picture is not known to a small group of potentially competitors?
@Maurice. Yes. And in a non-competitive environment, you can direct the papers to specialised journals, and assemble a multidisciplinary thesis from the parts. Taraah!
I feel, more important than whether papers are being cited, is the question: Are the papers useful to humankind?!
The researcher / writer always think that his/her work should be reached to maximum people. as already stated by somebody, to get more audience & citation it should be published in different journals. Especially in social sciences. The views may differ for Science & technology.
If you manage somehow to publish the same paper in different journals, you will be infringing copyrights, and be an unethical researcher This is why researchers carefully target the single most appropriate journal for the content. The social sciences get no special dispensation to be unethical.
Dear Ian
While I totally agree with what you said , I believe you somehow misunderstood the question. What Maurice is asking is this: If a researcher has for example 10 different research articles that have not been published yet. Is it better to publish these 10 articles in say 5 journals( 2 papers a journal-averaged fewer paper per journal) or is it better to publish the 10 papers in 2 journals( 5 papers a journal-averaged more papers per journal).
Dear Maurice
In my opinion their are more important criteria that decides where and how I publish my papers.
One of the common reasons why a paper is rejected is because editors may decide the work does not fit the journal's purview.It is therefore important to cosider first the appropriateness of the journal before submitting. Read the journal to see the sort of stuff they are publishing. So a more appropritate journal may be a better place to submit than a more prestigious,highly competitive one.
You need first to consider the relevance of your paper to the journal.
Secondly, if you want to maximize the number of citations to your papers, you don't do this by spreading your papers to more journals. You do this by publishing in specific journals relevant to the paper's research topic and not necessarily in the more prestigious journals. If your 10 papers are about one or two topics and these topics fit to only one journal's purview, then you should publish all papers in that one journal. Specialist in your research area will know very well that this journal publish work of your type.
If you are concerned that this journal is published in country X and not Y , I think with internet this is no longer a serious consideration at all.
@Issam and Parag. Yes, Parag saying "it should be published in different journals" needs to be read in the context of the original question to remove the ambiguity. Thanks.
Dear Ian, you are right in your every statement, because you are the top professional.I absolutely agree, grant-reviewing committees are rather transparent in their assessment. To be a reviewer is the greatest honor, hard work, and the greatest responsibility. I think, it is simpler to write a new article than to analyze an original material of an author.A top professional reviewer should live the author's life, understand his/her point of view, generalize the old and the new, find out the beauty, the innovation of the article. It requires a lot of time, energy, knowledge, love to scientific efforts and experiences.Every reviewer sharply understands his/her responsibility. He/she has been chosen to judge!
Dear Ian & Issam, I am agree with you.
It is always better to publish paper based on single/ similar studies in single journal to get continuous impact, this is also better for the reader because they will get a constant source of information from a single journal which is not only save the cost but also saves their search time.
But, its always better to publish in different journals for different subjects/topics.
As already mentioned by IAN that not to publish the same paper in multiple journals. Because Ethics is a base of any research. Unethical research may retrench your work along with name & fame.
Many times it is experienced that the people who stick to the same journal to publish all/most of their papers for a long time, people may start perceiving that (s)he is not capable to publish in another journal.
Another Ian weighing into the discussion.
Maurice, as answers to your question have invoked discussion concerning the impact factors (IF) of journals, I believe a few comments on this topic may be worthwhile.
Impact factors are a valuable tool for comparison of journals with similar subject profiles and which publish the same types of papers. Moreover, they can be used within fields as quality indicators. To illustrate the difficulty in making comparisons between journal impact factors, one can take the case of journals in the same field that do and do not publish reviews. In general reviews achieve a greater number of citations, and accordingly journals that include reviews tend to have higher impact factors than those that don't. In such discussions it is also of value to remember that the IFs for journals are based upon the citations accumulated over a given period of time by the papers already published in the journal. While the magnitude of the IF of a journal may reflect attributes of the process underlying the selection of papers published in a journal that can be translated into an indicator of "perceived quality", the IF of the journal does not provide a definitive statement as to the quality of a given manuscript. For a more detailed description of impact factors, I refer you to "Impact Factors - Use & Abuse" by M. Amin & M. Mabe (from Elsevier), an article also linked from the Thomson-Reuters ISI web site.
One can argue that whether a given manuscript has impact is reflected in the citations that it receives ("How many "others" have stood on the authors' shoulders" - adaption from Isaac Newton). Perhaps one can even reflect upon whether a paper contributes to the sinking or raising of the IF of the journal in which it is published? :-)
http://www.elsevier.com/framework_editors/pdfs/Perspectives1.pdf
Thanks, @Ian Nicolls. Perspectives1 has a telling statement: "Extending the use of the journal impact factor from the journal to the authors of papers in the journal is highly suspect; the error margins can become so high as to make any value meaningless." RG staff, take note.
A lot of factors dictates where you publish a research paper. First, its impact factor, 2) The cost of publication (this is what usually restrain most researchers, and im not of course an exception. 3) The suitability of your paper to the journal scope. I would say, everyone would love the diversity, but some journals are way too hard when it comes to manuscript preparation and Article Processing charges. for Example, I would opt for journal requesting for an APC of 105USD than one of 1,600 USD because of financial constraints. A humble thank you
Revisiting this question after 6 years, I would like to add a different perspective to the original question. It is useful later in your career, when you do not have to prove yourself, to be able to publish in many, varied journals. However, it is wise as a starting researcher, to specialise to prove yourself in the journal specializing in your specific field.
From the beginning of my academic career, I tried to submit two papers to each research conference. In case one was not accepted, I would still be able to go to the conference.
The most important factors affecting the funding of research and publication
well, in my opinion both way is okay. It depends upon the readership of the journal and somehow its impact in the society building. Some research groups focus only publishing in high impact factor journals, which is true to some extent if you are building your career and profile in the statistical world. I say your contribution matters in a relevant journal (same or different should be okay)
As is known, it is best to publish in several journals, preferably with good impact factors.
I think the best way is to publish in good journal that related to your paper topic
I think the best choice is selecting good journals with more impact on industrial field and other applications in your topics.
Best wishes.
think the best choice is selecting good journals,be relevant to the search topic..
I think it is better to publish in different impact journals based on your topic or field of study
It's great- maybe someone who is intelligent will read you, hear you and support you.
Publishing in different quality journals opens you up to gain better experience despite the attractiveness of publishing in similar journals.
From my point of view, scientific publishing in multiple journals is better than limiting the researcher himself with a specific number of journals to diversify the scientific experiences acquired.
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