Page 112 - How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 8th Edition 8th Edition

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The Prestige Factor

If several journals are right, does it matter which you select? Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does. There is the matter of
prestige. It may be that your future progress (promotions, grants) will be determined solely by the

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numbers game. But not necessarily. It may well be that a wise old bird sitting on the faculty committee or the grant
review panel will recognize and appreciate quality factors. A paper published in a "garbage" journal simply does not
equal a paper published in a prestigious journal. In fact, the wise old bird (and there are quite a few around in science)
may be more impressed by the candidate with one or two solid publications in a prestigious journal than by the
candidate with 10 or more publications in second-rate journals.

How do you tell the difference? It isn't easy, and of course there are many gradations. In general, however, you can
form reasonable judgments by just a bit of bibliographic research. You will certainly know the important papers that
have recently been published in your field. Make it your business to determine where they were published. If most of
the real contributions to your field were published in Journal A, Journal B, and Journal C, you should probably limit
your choices to those three journals. Journals D, E, and F, upon inspection, contain only the lightweight papers, so
each could be eliminated as your first choice, even though the scope is right.

You may then choose among Journals A, B, and C. Suppose that Journal A is a new, attractive journal published by a
commercial publisher as a commercial venture, with no sponsorship by a society or other organization; Journal B is an
old, well-known, small journal, published by a famous hospital or museum; and Journal C is a large journal published
by the principal scientific society representing your field. As a general rule (although there are many exceptions),
Journal C (the society journal) is probably the most prestigious. It also will have the largest circulation (partly because
of quality factors, partly because society journals are less expensive than most others, at least to society members). By
publication in such a journal, your paper may have its best chance to make an impact on the community of scholars at
whom you are aiming. Journal B might have almost equal prestige, but it might have a very limited circulation, which
would be a minus; it might also be very difficult to get into, if most of its space is reserved for in-house material.
Journal A (the commercial journal) almost certainly has the disadvantage of low circulation (because of its
comparatively high price, which is the result of both the profit aspect of the publisher and the fact that it does not have
the backing of a society or institution with a built-in subscription list). Publication in such a journal may result in a
somewhat restricted distribution for your paper.

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Be wary of new journals, especially those not sponsored by a society. The circulation may be minuscule, and the
journal might fail before it, and your paper, become known to the scientific world.

The Circulation Factor

If you want to determine the comparative circulation of several journals, there is an easy and accurate way to do it for
U.S. journals. Look among the last few pages of the November and December issues, and you will find a "Statement
of Ownership, Management and Circulation." The U.S. Postal Service requires that each publisher granted second-
class mailing privileges (and almost all scientific journals qualify) file and publish an annual statement. This statement
must include basic circulation data.

If you can't determine the comparative circulation of journals you are considering and have no other way of assessing
comparative prestige factors, a very useful tool exists for rating scientific journals. I refer to Journal Citation Reports

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