I look into following;

1-What are the publication charges?

2-Does the subject of my article match the journal's subject focus?

3-Does the journal accept the article type I intend to submit?

4-Is the journal regarded as a prestigious one in my field

5-What is the average review time for articles submitted to the journal?

In my case, I first pay attention whether that journal is ISI or SCOPUS. Then, I am careful about the ethics of the journal. By this I mean: do I have to pay or not to get published. I never (ever) have paid. (There is a post here on RG about this).

I look into following;

1-What are the publication charges?

2-Does the subject of my article match the journal's subject focus?

3-Does the journal accept the article type I intend to submit?

4-Is the journal regarded as a prestigious one in my field

5-What is the average review time for articles submitted to the journal?

Most if not all journals have an "aim and scope" or similar section on their homepages. This should tell you whether it is a good outlet for your research (and whether submitting your manuscript has a chance of success). Impact factor is, unfortunately, also important, however I think it's more important that the journal has the audience that you want to reach, not necessarily the largest one.

The point about ethics is also an important one! There are many shady publishers popping up who, under the guise of "open access", charge the authors horrendous amounts of money.

The top criterion - I think - is investigated by checking the list of fairly recent papers in your own manuscript's reference list, especially for the ones that appear most often. This will tell you which journals are friendly towards your subject, and if these papers are also good (well, why otherwise have them in the reference list?) then this will tell you that your manuscript would probably both fit the journal well and is likely to be received kindly. You might even want to state such a thing in your submission statement, so that the editors know that you have thought this thing through. 

I agree with Behrouz that the average refereeing time is important, but that information is not disclosed, although it is some times shown in the published paper the date of submission and the date for acceptance, so it IS sometimes possible to check.

Another time-oriented factor is the "back-log" of papers published, that is, how long does it typically take for a paper to be published after it has been accepted. As the date of acceptance is usually stated, and you know when each issue comes out, you can also calculate this time lag.

If you are looking for a very prestigious publication you may have to "pay" by having your paper stalled for quite long.

This question is very common and important too. The dilemma involved in publishing is extremely temporary if any. All that a potential article or manuscript writer needs to know is to follow the logical steps involved in the process. First, if you do not yet have what to publish, you should do some literature- review on the subject.

          An abstract is written as one paragraph and it does not usually contain citations. On the other hand, if you already have what to publish, then the following steps would suffice: (1) identify a journal, a book publisher, or calls for papers or abstracts for conferences (Google it from internet), (2) look for author instructions for paper submission (guidelines) and download them, (3) follow the guidelines, for example, a typical abstract may contain one or two sentences on the following elements: introduction (what the paper is about), objectives, methods or methodology, results, and conclusion (100-500 words as required).

          In case of a full article, the following outlines are useful: Topic or title (within 3-15 words), followed by name and full address (es) of the author(s) especially affiliation, emails, phones, etc.; then write subtitle (abstract) followed by: Introduction (a summary of the main issues to be discussed), Methodology, Results (are derived from the objectives of the paper), Discussion (of the results can be supported by relevant citations), Conclusions ( are based on the specific results or findings), and Recommendations (optional) based on the conclusions. It might be necessary to put sub-title on Acknowledgements (thanks to individuals, groups, or organisations who have directly contributed to process of your work).

           The final sub-heading is on References or Bibliography (there is a basic difference between References and Bibliography). References should follow the standard styles such as APA 6th edition, and Harvard system among others. Make sure that the sentence, paragraphs, and basic grammar improve on the flow of your ideas throughout the work. You must proofread (read through) your work or ask someone else to do it for you to check errors (mistakes).If you send your work to the editor or editorial assistant of a specific publication, they will send them for peer-reviewing which may require to attend to some corrections or adjustments. It is better to respond as soon as possible so that your work may be published within the deadline.

          Some journals offer free publishing while charge handling fees for processing and publishing the paper. Before you submit your work, make sure that you are decided on this issue. In addition, some publishers may waive off or reduce the official handling fee at your request. Take note that freelance editors or proof-readers (individuals) are available at a fee normally charged in line with the urgency or volume of work.

          Editors may ask you to sign a copyright agreement with the publication. You can publish from different sources of information including: literature review of a subject of interest to you, personal or teaching (preaching) notes, reports, research, field work, dissertation or theses. This simple guideline may help you to get started to do your first publication.

My answer may sound unusual: If I want to publish something, then I shall select a pertinent journal which charges very little fees. The journal must have very low price. It is important that the journal is located in a "neutral" country because I am sure that politics has a role to play even if you publish a paper about Ludwig van Beethoven !

I prefer journals available for my target audience.

Something that I am sure varies a lot over the world is the variation in financial support for researchers to publish. If we have governmental support for a research project we normally HAVE TO publish in an open-access journal, but we have on the other hand money for this included in the grants. And when I say "open-access" ("OA") I do not necessarily mean the fairly new ones which always charges you; in most cases we would publish in the very best "older" and very respected journals for which you have the option to pay a rather handsome fee in order for that particular paper to be freely downloaded. THAT is normally what "open-access" means for us - publishing in the usual top-of-the-line journals but with the added OA cost of $3000 or something. 

If I have the option I publish in the best one, period - that means, I would publish in a journal which is of very high quality and which has very good papers recently published and which are strongly related to the paper I am submitting. I would then, as it were, publish "with my friends". That's definitely the ideal situation. And in such a case, the open-access question would be of secondary importance.

When I want to publish in a journal I would first ask for its Impact Factor. The Impact Factor is the most critical measure in this connection.

I see about - indexing, impact factor, thomson reuters, appearing in pubmed, peer-reviewing, publication charges, open access/regular, meeting aims and scope, kinds of papers published, new / old journal - if new then its progress and perspectives, time in which whole publication process is completed. 

Hi Dear Aliemys

I think the impact factor is very important to other index

This paper by C.K. Yap giving advice to  young Malaysian scientists may be of interest to others too.

Thanks  Dear @Tan for view on h index, 

I would consider - indexing, impact factor or if not then perspectives of future IF, editorial board, quality of papers being published and peer-reviewing process, as well as time factor of acceptance / publishing - also whether publications charges are there and if yes then can I/we pay?

I am also running 2 journals with good perspectives for IF, as Editor-in-Chief, and following above my principles for their good progress..  

The following are the main indicators for me: 

1. the journal is reputable (it is listed in SCOPUS, WoS + it has a reputable publisher)

2. the journal is open-access 

3. there is no publication charges

4. frequency of publication

Dear Dr.Aleimys

Please consider the following:

1. Whether journal is peer-reviewed?

2. Are they charge anything for publication?

3. Online availability

4. TImeliness

5. Open Access

6. Whether indexed in major databases like Scopus, WoS, etc.

7. What is the impact Factor

8. Copyright policy

9. Online submission process

Regards

It depends on reputability of the journal, its open-access nature, frequency of publication and interestingly if there is no publication charges.

But is there even one scientific journal that publishes in an open access mode without charging? I have never seen one. 

Do consult the Beale's list  of Predatory Journals too when considering journals to submit your papers too especially the open access ones.

There are in fact traditional journals without page charges which do allow open access to their contents. You just have to search for these.

Dear Dr Aleimys,

One of the important criteria is in which indexing databases, it is being indexed.

You must also take into account on the quality of your own paper.  If it is very novel and written well, you must consider the highest impact factor.

All the best and good luck

I think apart from the info on  indexing and the quality of your paper,  you might want to consider the type of research work a journal tends to publish. For example, in social sciences you have a very good quantitative work but the journal has a predominant focus on qualitative or phenomenological research, your submission might not be welcomed.

Most importantly, I would start with the question: “What readers do I want to attract to read this article?” Answering that question will give you a list of journals reaching that audience. From these journals I would then find the ones which are most fitted to the topic the article is actually treating. Among these remaining journals I would look at various other aspects, also commented by other ResearchGate members within this question thread, e.g. the impact factor of the journals. Read the stated aim and scope of the journals. If some of the journals are not so familiar to you, it is also good to browse through some articles in the journals you’re considering to see how they are presenting the research content, and yes, also the look of the article, the layout, will have an influence of how your research is received and perceived by the readers. Finally, seeking comments and advices from your colleagues (and co-authors naturally) may often be beneficial and fruitful.

Dear Aleimys pichs fernández

There are many indicators. first of all is my field of specialization. Secondly is: is the journal indexed in good database?? Ist is Web of Science or Scopus?? The system of reviewership.

Best regards

I think Nasser Said Gomma is right. But within a particular field of specialization, the issue of the journal's focus on publishing primarily a qualitative vs. quantitative work remains. In social sciences this distinction between particular schools of thought remains real; e.g., positivist or post positivist vs. phenominological or naturalistic.

That the journal (i.e., the editors) has a conscience - i.e., that the journal doesn't shell out bullshit, which very many actually do!

I do not comment on the specialisation, as I think we all know what field(s) we belong to.

The quality of its previously published articles. :)

The most important issue is the novelty of your paper you should make your idea very clear and tell the reader what is the different of your study compare with previous study, then you can publish your article in high impact factor journal

The most important factor for would be whether, the journal is indexed in some known database.

The quality of the journal, its JIF, and time taken to publish the manuscript, and previous experiences with the journal.

True Samy. I would add one more and my experience is that too is crucial. That is, how many times I have already published in that journal and what region the journal originates from. Sometimes an objection to your CV is that most of your papers are in a couple of journals and that the journal comes from one region only. Papers in the American and the European journals are given more credence.

You are right Fazal Rahim. However, usually, journals with high JIF originates from the USA, the UK, Germany, and some other European countries, Canada, and Australia. Therefore, publishing in these journals, particularly those representing societies and association in the USA, Canada, the UK, and others is important. Furthermore, not all journals listed in the JCR are scientifically excellent. For example, Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. is listed in the JCR and has an impact factor I think around 1.00. Still, they do not review papers; they are just seen internally and are interested in the 3000 dollars (or equivalent) to be paid as processing fees. This is only one example.

True. Eversince the commercial publishers took over the journals of the academic associations, excellence has become thoroughly compromised. I know of Western publisher publishing an environmental science journal forced an author to cite studies published in that particular journal. The IF gets artificially inflated. The political economy of publishing is supportive of commercial interests rather than the quality of knowledge. The basic scientific knowledge is becoming increasingly comodified.