Criteria for Selecting a Journal

2. Criteria for Selecting a Journal S. Zahedi Endocrine Research Center Research Institute for endocrine Sciences Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences zahedi@endocrine.ac.ir WWW.endocrine.ac.ir 3rd Sientific Meeting of ISME-22 Dec 2010-Tehran

3. Why publish? • A report • Responsibility • Promotion • Graduation • Competition • Announcement • Good for end users

4. Why publish • Apart from the believes of Publish or Perish! • An article is the product of a research project: • If it is not published in a peer reviewed journal • Usually it is not accepted be the scientific world • It is not disseminated • The results might be pinched

5. Before starting to write: In the article which I am going to write: What am going to say? Is it worth saying? What is the best way to say Which group may study the article? Which Journal is the best? (Ask the editor)

6. Which Journal? • National • The number of submitted manuscripts are dropping • The quality of the manuscripts are dropping • The quality of the works are increased • Stress on journals with ISI and impact factor is increased • Awareness about the publication ethics is increased • We should do something about that!!! • International • Right journal from the users point of view • Some times may not be in the scope of the journal

7. Which Journal? • Fair review • Supposed to be so • But it seems it is not • It is difficult to prove • But many believe there are • Pregidism • Restrictions

8. Which Journal? • Impact factor? • Number of citation during 2 previous years of calculation/ total number of published papers • All articles are not included in the denominator • Some publishers negotiate with the TS ( Sudden jump of IF for certain journals) • Problem of retracted articles • Tricks by editors. Accepting more review articles or articles about genome • Force the editors to reject good negative findings

9. Which Journal? • Prestige • Usually high impact factor • Very good for CV and career • Very difficult to succeed • It is a wish and goal for any researcher but • For some one with long CV fine • For a PhD student who need to publish a paper from his/her thesis well?

10. Which Journal? • Speed • Some times speed is crucial • Quick publication of significant findings • Needed for promotion • Needed for graduation • So one may ignore any other considerations

11. Which Journal? • Open access • Open access journals are increasing • Increase visibility • Increase citation • Economic reasons might tamper the process

12. Which Journal? • Length restriction and page charges • Charge for printed page • Charge after certain number of pages • For a large amount of findings which can not be divided, one need a journal with no charges or little charges

13. Which Journal? • Some other factors • Figure production • Reprint costs • Wide distribution • Providing free PDF copies • Copy right retention

14. Which Journal? • One need to be realistic • Every one wants to publish in “Nature” or “Science” • But they announce that they reject 95% of the manuscripts. • So attempt to publish in these type of journals may be just waste of time. • Be realistic and formulate your submission policy according to what you have got

15. A simple study • Questionnaire was sent to 125 corresponding authors of the published articles in Iranian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism as a post publishing survey • Journal was established in 1378 • Biannually • Quarterly • And now bimonthly • 25 issues have been published • Prize winner of Razi festival • Rejection rate is about 40% • The questions were mainly about the reason(s) for selecting IJEM for publishing their findings

16. Some data on IJEM

17. Authors’ opinion about IJEM

18. Conclusion • Authors should formulate their strategy according to the situation. • Journal should analyze their status and formulate their strategy to attract more articles.