Thank you for the invitation. For me, it depends, in a high degree, on the quality of the work and the view which the researcher has for their work. Early career researchers may begin by submitting their manuscripts in international scientific journals which are listed in ISI/Web of Science. In this way, they can test their potential. If they fail, they can examine other options, but not quit their efforts. Each work has merit and the effort is rewarded soon or later.

Regards

Dear Sir,

To check validity or toughness of any international fully reputable journal please follow the link below:

www.scimagojr.com

Regards, Emad

http://www.scimagojr.com/

I would just report my research in a recognized journal, that does a good REVIEW, and facilitates my growth in knowledge.  That's what I have been doing.  To my happy surprise, RG started placing more emphasis on h index, and not impact factor.  Congrats to RG.  (Now predatory journals with fake IF will lose some appeal... :))

I suggest try your best to produce a quality research.

Regards

IJAZ

Thank you for the invitation. For me, it depends, in a high degree, on the quality of the work and the view which the researcher has for their work. Early career researchers may begin by submitting their manuscripts in international scientific journals which are listed in ISI/Web of Science. In this way, they can test their potential. If they fail, they can examine other options, but not quit their efforts. Each work has merit and the effort is rewarded soon or later.

Regards

I agree with Aristidis Matsoukis completely.

I think researcher should do both

How is calculated impact factor? See the link below. An excerpt with an example:

“Figure 1: Calculation for journal impact factor.

A= total cites in 1992

B= 1992 cites to articles published in 1990-91 (this is a subset of A)

C= number of articles published in 1990-91

D= B/C = 1992 impact factor”

High Impact factor seems the natural empty premium for rapid fast food research? How many years of research work are required before obtain and publishing any result that really sounds? How much time is required by researchers for understanding totally some real scientific advances in a scientific area?

http://wokinfo.com/essays/impact-factor/

If you wish to get a good job in a top university, you have to publish in top journals. It is not easy for early-career researchers, but co-operating with more experienced colleagues can help. Of course, sometimes, if you feel that the paper does not have enough potential for a top journal, you can publish it in a lower-level but still good peer-reviewed journal, too, but if you wish to get cited a lot, you have to publish in top journals as people read them more. In any case, avoid "pay and publish whatever you wish already a week after submission" type of trash journals: they will harm your career possibilities, and many scholars avoid reading and citing such journals, so you would probably not get many citations, especially from well-known scholars if you publish your work there.

Dear Emeka,

If the 50% of the high IF journals are in my country, I think that it would be obligated to publish in these types of journals. But this is not the reality in more of the 95% of researchers of the world.

Thanks for sharing.

I usually prefer recognized journals. Good and useful research work and its dissemination are two factors encouraging me for paper publications. If these two factors are fulfilled, then there comes impact factor later.

Thanks everyone for these exceptional answers.

Dear Tiia,

You are right in your explanation of the issue. I'd like to add some words to it. Publications of papers have been politized, as well. It happened more than once to my papers. The reason for rejection was stated as "not relevant to our journal", while some of my references of the papers were cited from the same rejecting Journal, which were having the same research themes. I feel and to some extent I'm sure that there are some sort of partiality for accept/rejecting manuscript  from certain regions. 

Dear Faramarz,

Thanks for pointing us to your experience. I think some regions and/or some established scholars are favoured by some journals. I have read some papers in some top journals that didn't make sense. Although the quality of research is vital, can quality alone guarantee the acceptance of a paper, especially from an unknown scholar?

Dear Emeka, 

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Based on my personal experiences, my answer to your further question is negative. That is to say, quality of research is not always the criterion for paper acceptance. I became sure and have  convincing reasons for my claims. Because one top journal publisher gave a vague reason for rejection, while I have sent the same paper to another top journal (ISI listed), it was accepted without any serious comments. These two publishers are placed in different countries.  (Let the names remain anonymous).

Regards,

Faramarz

Quality research matters more than anything else. In the end, there is no use of impact factor, when the project itself is of no importance.

A highly innovative research can be targeted to journals with high impact factors, review paper can be published with/out impact factors

 I think it's important to publish your paper in the journals which are supported by your university. Take care not publishing any journal before checking its credibility (follow this link: https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

Either the journal with high impact factor or not, this is not important if you think that your paper  has scientific value.

Thanks for your contributions. Your answers are insightful. The politics in scholarly publishing is becoming burdensome, especially for early career scholars from some parts of the world. I still think that quality is not always enough for papers from some parts of the world to be accepted in top journals. Many are desk rejected immediately they are received.

Could publications be defined as internationally accepted activity reports?

I think that early career or old researchers should submit their manuscripts to international scientific journals which are listed in Thomson ISI or ERA.

Recognized ...Yes.

Yes, but what content? In one way or another, this content must be evaluated for its merit. Otherwise, the grouping of the journals (if we speak about only journals) has no meaning. I realize the objections and I totally agree with the latter summarized response of Dr. Dumbili (and similar views of the colleaques). I had a similar experience, too. But, under the given system, what do you suggest, dear colleagues, as a better, qualitatively, handling of the situation? I think that this matter interests all of us.

Regards

to get the most updated scientific review of literature in to the discipline, it is very necessary to capture most relevant information from high indexed journals of web of sciences ,in addition to reading excellent books of the inquirey

Dear Dr  Aristidis Matsoukis, many thanks for your comment and for sharing your experience too. I am happy that some of the commenters agreed that scholarly publishing is not bias-free . As you asked for suggestions, I think that regional journals may serve as one of the solutions. This is because reviewers are likely to know the jargons/terminologies, study sites, populations, etc. of such regions.

I agree 100 percent. There are regional scientific journals, which are reliable. 'There', a scientific work could find its right position, with one prerequisite; at least, the language of the abstract should be English (apart from the language of the country). In this case, a reader or a reviewer, who does not know other international languages, could understand, somehow, the meaning of the work.

Regards 

I think both factors are important in the sense that, the recognized journals are established journals. They are known and by extension, publishing in them gives you a surety that you're publishing in the right journal. More-so, the impact factor is also important. If your work can be accepted in a high impact journal, it means its a quality work.

This is becoming more interesting. Many thanks for adding further comments.  As Prof Marković rightly noted, I think that contemporary trend is more about where your work is published. Mr Rashid noted:  ''if your work can be accepted in a high impact journal, it means its a quality work''. Sir, do you think that this is always the case? In my opinion, this is not 100% true.

i think the aim is publishing in journals any way

If editorial board member is strong and its peer-reviewed journal then we should publish the article without an impact factor too.

Dear RG friends,

As a researcher and Head of department we are every day in front of fake journals with fake impact factor and high publishing fees. I think that journals indexed within Thomson Reuters are not all credible. Only those indexed within Sc citation Expanded (JCR) having an IF are of quality.

Dear Emeka,

High IF journals normally have very strict prerequisites that most junior researchers can not met. However, they should check carefully the journals credibility because of wide dissemination of fake IF journals. National journals, especially in developing countries, which issued by sound academic institutions could be a good candidate as a start, then should gradually target international journals.

Regards

SM Najim

Someone noted above that ''if your work can be accepted in a high impact journal, it means it's a quality work''. Is this always the case? Is this assertion 100% true? Please I need more comments on this. If editors, peer-reviewers and experienced researchers can share their views, that will be appreciated. This will help some of us that are fairly new. Many thanks.

As I think most of researchers published in a recognize journals which offer more facilities , so the IF journals were difficult for publishing 

Dear Nirmala,

The same thing happened to my papers.

I think the main issue is the real purpose behind publication. Are you publishing for career enhancement, promotion and perhaps more money? You aim for the top journal or you just want to add to existing knowledge, in any little way possible, then any journal, blog or opportunity to discuss your findings is worthwhile but remember it might not be RWEFable or counts towards your promotion.

However, you can still eat your cake and have it. You can still publish in top ranking journals and still add to knowledge.

One must do good research work and publish it and slowly one reach to the highest journal.

A good researcher should focus on issue focused research that carries implications for academicians as well as practitioners. Research paper should be submitted to recognised journals only with good circulation so that people read your paper

My personal feeling: refer good journals with high IF (esp. Thomos reuters), SSCI or SCI for your research work and must target good journals for publication at-least once to understand the quality of your paper and where do u stand. If rejected go by the reviews, modify and send in different journal as per the quality. This process will help in calibrating your potential and scope for improvement.  

Impact factor may not always be the best indicator of the journal quality. I would suggest checking journal rankings (e.g. ABS guide) too.

Many thanks Professor Ruta. As you rightly noted, impact factor is not always the best measure of the quality of journals. I have received more thorough peer reviews in some journals without impact factors than I did in some of the journals with impact factors.

How is impact factor measured? Most journals have sprung up and the impact factor they claim their journals have is not accurate. There are journals that are known and have high reputation e.g. Elsevier. What worries some researchers is time frame from submission to publication period. Patience forces some to publish in other journals. To me there should be a regulatory body to govern all journals to enhance quality research

And even worse, the time frame from submission of a manuscript to its rejection, which can exceed a reasonable period (in my opinion, this reasonable period may not be more than two months).

You are right. Sometimes these journals waste so much time before sending their decisions to authors. Sometimes between 6-8 months before informing the author that the paper has been rejected.  

@Emeka, in as much you will have to send papers to top journals, then you must be ready to live with disappointments. I agree with Subhash C. Kundu · that you can build gradually and get your self to the top.

Hello Emeka!

I agree with Astridis, Miranda, Nasir and C Kundu that fake and unauthorised journals show high impact factors and minimal indexing,  that is alluring. But recognised journals may disappoint many authors but then the end result after publication in such journals increases the citations and readability of the research article. Thankfully RG too emphasises on this only as a researcher's portal.

Thank you 

Many thanks Dr Ranjita for your comment. I have also observed that some articles that are published in high impact factor journals remain uncited after many years. I think that time has come when the emphasis should be on quality of research output rather that journals' impact factors.

I agree with Aristridis, Miranda and many others. It is especially important for early career researchers from developing countries whose native language is not English. Usually published papers in their local national journals and other periodicals remain unread by international scientists. I advise always to my PhD Students to start publishing in international well-recognised journals in their field of research. At his early stage of scientific career the quality of published research and citations are more important than journal IF. As it was reiterated by Nasir young scientists can build scientific reputation gradually and get some later themselves to the top of the world scientific community.

Kindest Regards

Many thanks Dr Bakhtiyor Karimov! Good to know that you advise your students to publish in recognized journals. That is helpful indeed. While I strive to publish in journals with high impact factor, my main focus now is to conduct good research and disseminate my findings in recognised international journals with or without impact factors.

Dear Dr. Emeka W. Dumbili,

Many thanks for your encouraging answer; I am absolutely agreed with you. There are a lot of research results of high, medium and low quality which have to be published in appropriate journals with or without IF. Concerning your answer/question 12 days ago regarding notice ''if your work can be accepted in a high impact journal, it means it's a quality work'': to my opinion it is almost always 100% true. We have published papers in different international journals including with high IF and were convinced that high IF journals have multistage long-lasting review process and were much more difficult for publishing even if you paper is enough high quality. In other words low quality papers have no chance for publication in such journals. Besides that authors of low quality works choose usually journals with lower IF or without it but publishing within short period of time.

Many thanks Prof Bakhtiyor Karimov for your candid opinion. I believe that high IFs journals accept papers of high quality, but I doubt whether this is 100% the case.   

Thanks Dr Khan for your comments. Of course, I have argued that IFs do not always reflect the quality of papers. If you read through my other comments (many commenters supported mine view), you will see my arguments that politics of publication is increasing in number these days.

Given that most people look for IFs, I think new researchers should try and publish in impact factor journals. However, it is not always possible to get published in high impact journals - not only because they receive a lot of manuscripts and their rejection rate are high, but also because sometimes your article is of local or regional importance, and not of national or international importance. When your article is of local or regional importance, you should look for local or regional journals but the reputed ones (those associated with genuine reputed academic bodies/associations/institutions) - beware! there are a lot of shady journals and publishing houses around.

I will certainly suggest the ones that are indexed with ISI/Web of Science. It is not the impact factor the journal but how many citations your work accrues over the years decides the impact and usefulness of your work. I published one article in journal in public health (IF~2.0) in 2015, but it is yet to receive its first citation. On the other hand, I had published an article in a journal with no impact factor back in 2013, it has received over a dozen citations since then. I think the latter has certainly been more influential - the former though is close to my heart, it is still waiting for its first citation.  

Many thanks Aditya for your interesting contribution.