1. Identify: Find Candidate Journals

Your first step is to identify a list of candidate journals for your research. There are a few different ways you can do this, including using journal matchers, journal indices, and references and recommendations. Information about each of these options is provided in the boxes below.

Journal matchers allow you to enter information about your manuscript and retrieve journals that may publish articles similar to your manuscript.

Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE)

• Enter the title and/or abstract into the search bar to find similar journals, articles, or authors
• Limited to journals in PubMed

PubMed PubReMiner 

• Enter a search query, and retrieve journals and authors from PubMed
• Limited to journals in PubMed
• Best for simple searches that retrieve fewer than 1,000 results

EndNote Manuscript Matcher 

• Enter your title, abstract, or EndNote citations to find similar journals
• Limited to Web of Science journals
• Note: You will need a free EndNote Online account to use this tool

You can find candidate journals by searching within journal indices. Many indices allow you to search for journals by topic or subject area. You can also find journals by simply searching within relevant database indices, such as PubMed, Scopus, etc.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) 

• Automatically sorted by Journal Impact Factor
• Includes Web of Science journals

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) 

• Includes journals indexed by the Director of Open Access Journals
• Open access journals

Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) 

• Automatically sorted by Scimago Journal Rank Indicator (SJR)
• Includes journals indexed by Scopus

Database Searching 

• Search within relevant databases for candidate journals
• E.g. Scopus, PubMed, CINAHL, etc.

Some additional ways to find candidate journals include:

• Looking through the bibliography of your manuscript for any relevant journals.
• Asking professors, advisors, or colleagues in your field for recommendations.

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