This guide presents information and resources to assist you in investigating journals likely to publish research manuscripts in your discipline. The guide is presented in 3 parts:
- Part 1 - Basic Publication Information for Journals
- Part 2 - Journal Acceptance Rates and Submission Guidelines
- Part 3 - Journal Rankings, Impact Factors, and Cited References
Although you are likely to be aware of the many journals in your research area, journal publication directories can help you identify periodicals with which you may not familiar. These directories can also provide contact information, circulation data, and other bits of information, such as where the journal is indexed and where online full text may be found.
There are two well-known directories which provide this information.
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory
Ulrich's is an international directory of periodical publications in print. Not only containing publication information for scholarly and academic journals, Ulrich's can also be used to locate newsletters, popular magazines, Open Access Journals, and newspapers.
A lot of information about a journal can be found in an Ulrich's entry. Information is presented in a tabbed format. A typical entry in Ulrich's contains:
- Title of Publication
- Publication Status (active or ceased)
- Start year
- Frequency of publication (monthly, quarterly, etc.)
- Whether or not the publication is refereed
- Subscription price
- Where the journal is indexed and abstracted and where online access can be found
- Ordering Information
- Reviews (from Magazines for Libraries, which identifies core titles and give estimates of information and research value)
Ulrich's can also be browsed by subject or searched by keyword in case you are looking for publications dealing with a particular subject of discipline.
Ulrich's, although rich in information does not contain acceptance rates or submission guidelines.
This directory provides bibliographic information, pricing and contact information for periodicals published worldwide.
The website maintained by a journal's publisher is usually the most reliable and up-to-date source of information about a journal's submission requirements, manuscript guidelines, acceptance rates and rejections. Finding the website is usually just a Google search away, but the Ulrich's Periodicals Directory is a good place to start if your list is lengthy, or you are trying to identify journals in your area of research.
Here are the hyperlinks to the directories discussed above: