REPORT OF INR JOURNAL CLUB MEETING
29TH MAY, 2021
TIME: 3 PM
TOPIC: CHOOSING A JOURNAL FOR YOUR PUBLICATION
Ogunbge Olubunmi
The meeting started at 3 pm, with greetings from the moderator; Mabel T.M.
At 3:08 pm, the speaker; Ogungbe Olubunmi started the presentation by sharing her slides with the first slide revealing the rigorous process a researcher goes through before his/her paper gets published.
She mentioned in the subsequent slides that if a journal will be published by an author, the following questions should be asked:
1. Is my paper realistically in reach of being published by this journal?
2. What is the journal scope and is it applicable for my specific sub-discipline?
She explained that journal scope should be within the range of topics published by the journal e.g a paper on hypertension should not be published in an orthopedic journal. She emphasized that the necessary details about a journal should be searched for and known beforehand.
3. Who is my intended audience?
4. Is this a high-quality journal? She explained that the quality of a journal can be known through its impact factor or metrics. A high-quality journal has a relatively good or high impact factor. She emphasized that the higher the impact factor, the more prestigious the journal is.
Lists of journals include:
i. PubMed and NCBI databases.
ii. Ulrich’s periodical directory.
Lists of journal matching tools
1. Journal or Author’s Name Estimator (JANE): She explained that journals can be searched by abstract or by topic. She emphasized that we use J.A.N.E so well.
2. Journal guide.
3. Springer journal suggester.
4. Scholarly Publishing Information Hub (SPI-HUB).
5. Elsevier journal finder.
She further explained that to assess journal quality, the following questions should be answered:
1. Is the journal indexed or not?
An indexed journal means a journal or publication that has gone through and passed a review process of certain requirements. Examples include MBASE, Cochran.
2. The Directory Open Access Journal (DOAJ): This type of Journal is suitable to publish open access journals.
3. Can the journal be trusted?: She mentioned that we should make inquiries from others that have read publications from that journal.
Other factors used to assess the quality of a journal include:
1) Journal Metrics: some important things to note under journal metrics are:
a) Journal impact factor: The higher the impact factor, the higher the quality of the journal. It is calculated thus: Cite to recent items/ Number of recent items.
She advised that we first consider the top journals with high impact factor(>=10) such as the New England of Medicine, Lancet, etc; the middle range journals, then the relatively low range journal, based on the study.
b) Cite score
c) Eigenfactor: this is based on the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year.
d) SCImago Journal & Country Rank(SJR): it is weighed on the prestige of a journal, subject field, quality, and reputation of the journal and it has direct effects on the value of citation.
e) Source Normalized Impact per Pare (SNIP): it is calculated thus: sources average citation count per paper/ citation potential of its subject field.
The speaker allowed questions and the following questions were asked:
1) What exact score of impact factor is categorized as a good journal?
Answer: there is no exact score, but as long as the impact factor is above one, it is okay for a start.
2) Is there any open access journal that is free of charge?
Answer: publishing in an open access journey is quite costly because the author of the publication is charged for people to have easy access to read. Although there are times the researcher will have to email the editor to know if there are waivers available.
3a) What are the factors that make the Nigerian journals less acceptable than the foreign journals?
Answer: The issue with Nigerian journals is the style of writing.
3b) What advice will you give to make Nigerian journals more acceptable?
Answer: Check how other authors write, read better and you will write better. You learn the art of writing by writing.
Mirror a very good paper in one of the reputable journals and place it side by side with your work; it gives a good sense of style.
Make sure one of your references is from one of the papers published in that journal.
Reporting Journal Press Team member Salako.
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