Writing Skills in Nursing and Healthcare by Bitten by the writing bug? Or just wondering which journal might be a good fit for your latest research idea?
FGCU Library has created a helpful library guide for faculty on Getting Published! It's located in our Faculty Scholarship and Teaching Tools Library Guide--which, by the way, is an awesome faculty guide and well worth a look. (Hint, hint.)
PLEASE NOTE: The information on this page is only meant to supplement the Getting Published Library Guide, not replace it.
FGCU Library subscribes to two good Journal Databases that can help you determine the best fit for your article. Use them in combination for optimal results:
FIRST, use Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory to look up journals by subject area. You may be surprised to see how many journals publish in your niche! If you are unable to get accepted to a US journal, consider contacting a journal of your profession in Canada, the UK, New Zealand, or Australia. (Very comprehensive directory.)
NEXT, use Cabell's Directory to look up the journal(s) of choice to target that you found in Ulrich's. Cabell's will tell you a journal's acceptance rate, length of time to publication, and type of peer-review process the journal utilizes. (Note: not as comprehensive as Ulrich's, so you may not be able to find certain journals listed in it.)
NEXT, use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)to look up journal(s) considered "safe." DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ is independent. All funding is via donations, 22% of which comes from sponsors and 78% from members and publisher members. All DOAJ services are free of charge including being indexed in DOAJ. All data is freely available.
Provides information on prices, frequency of publication, addresses, phone, e-mail and Web site addresses for over 300,000 journals, magazines, newspapers, and other periodicals published worldwide. Indicates whether periodicals are available in print, online or other formats. Identifies audience, such as scholarly or trade, and helps researchers identify peer-reviewed or refereed journals.
SEARCH TIP: Scroll to the right in the list for complete data, including acceptance rates (when available).
Use Ulrich's International Periodicals Directly (see above). Type in the name of the journal into the search box. In the results pages, you will see a referee's shirt next to the journal if it is peer-reviewed/refereed.
Interested in finding out how wide a sphere of influence a journal has? Try these sources:
Don't become the victim of predatory publishing!
If an offer to publish sounds too good to be true: examine the publisher carefully. Predatory publishers prey upon the "publish or perish" mentality that can permeate academia. Don't be caught unaware. Check out Beall's List of Predatory Publishers to determine if:
(Beall's List is continually updated.)
