How to target a journal that’s right for your research - SciDev.Net

" ... Academics involved in research are often evaluated based on their research output or publications. Whether they get a degree, get hired, get promoted or get tenure is often tied to the quantity and quality of the publications they have recently authored. And in some countries quantity takes precedence over quality and becomes a defining factor in career progression. Researchers working in such environments may be tempted to publish more and faster. Thus the demand for publication outlets increases, and so does the supply — in the form of more academic publishers and journals. In scholarly publishing, no overall body sets standards and processes. Anyone can buy a domain name and set up a journal with a name of their choice. The sole motive may be making money by charging authors for publishing articles. These publishers may have an editorial board, but its members may be complicit. Such publishers tend to name their journals in a grand way, with meaningless words such as ‘global’, ‘international’ or ‘advanced’. They may also have an overly broad title or scope that includes many areas of research (to attract more papers). Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver, United States, maintains a list of such 'predatory' journals and publishers. [1] These journals may publish papers after cursory or no peer review, despite claiming otherwise. Researchers may send their papers to predatory journals either knowingly or naively buying into the false claims made. [2] And although poor peer review actually suits authors who have not done work of a sufficiently high quality to get published in established journals, many more are victims. [3] Researchers in developing countries often do not receive adequate research guidance early in their careers. They work in resource-poor environments and they lack research writing skills. Yet they face the same pressure to ‘publish or perish’ as their counterparts in developed countries ..."