Before submitting, consider the journal's scope and audience, peer-review practices, indexing, publication model, fees, impact and visibility, and publisher transparency. No single metric or directory should be used by itself to determine whether a journal is appropriate or trustworthy.
Before You Submit
Start with the MUSM Pre-Submission Checklist
Pre-Submission Checklist for Scholarly Publications
Use the checklist before submitting a manuscript to review journal fit, indexing, publication requirements, author responsibilities, and other important considerations.
Not sure about a journal or publisher? Contact your department's Library Liaison. The library can help faculty, students, residents, and staff evaluate journals, verify indexing and metrics, and identify appropriate publication venues.
Choosing the Right Journal
There is no single "best" journal for every manuscript. The most appropriate journal is one whose scope, readership, publication practices, and requirements align with your work and your goals.
Interactive Journal Scorecard
Enter a journal name, then select one to five stars for each criterion. One star means a poor match or serious concerns; five stars means an excellent match based on what you have verified. The first three criteria receive the greatest weight.
Does the journal regularly publish work like yours, including your topic, methods, and article type?
Will the journal reach the clinicians, researchers, educators, or other readers you want to reach?
Have you verified the journal's indexing in databases that matter for your discipline?
Are peer review, editorial oversight, publisher identity, and fees transparent and credible?
Does the journal have relevant readership, reach, or credible field-appropriate metrics?
Are the publishing options and all fees clear and acceptable? Have you checked Mercer APC agreements?
Do article type, word limits, policies, and likely timelines suit your manuscript?
1 star = poor match / concerns | 3 stars = reasonable / needs review | 5 stars = excellent / verified
Important: This is a self-assessment and decision-support tool, not a certification or MUSM Library endorsement. Independently verify indexing, peer review, and publisher claims. A strong score cannot compensate for deceptive publishing practices. If unsure, contact your Library Liaison.
Tools for Finding Potential Journals
Use Journalytics Medicine to identify and evaluate medical and health-sciences journals, review journal characteristics and metrics, and investigate journals flagged for potentially deceptive or problematic practices.
Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE)
Enter a manuscript title or abstract to identify journals with similar content in MEDLINE. JANE is useful for generating possibilities, but suggested journals should still be evaluated independently before submission.
AI-Enabled and Publisher Journal Finders
Journal-matching tools can help identify potential journals based on a manuscript title, abstract, or keywords. Publisher-specific tools suggest journals within their own portfolios, while independent tools may identify journals across multiple publishers.
Publisher Journal Finders:
- Elsevier Journal Finder
- Springer Nature Journal Finder
- Wiley Journal Finder
- SAGE Journal Recommender
- Taylor & Francis Journal Suggester
Important: Use journal recommendations as a starting point rather than an endorsement. Always verify journal scope, indexing, publication fees, metrics, and publisher information independently.
Before paying an article processing charge (APC), check whether Mercer University has an agreement that covers the fee. Visit the Mercer Open Access Publishing and APC Journal Finder to explore participating publishers and eligible journals.
Evaluating and Verifying a Journal
Verify claims made on a journal's website rather than relying on the journal's own description. Several independent resources can help.
Journalytics Medicine / Predatory Reports
Use Predatory Reports to investigate journals identified as potentially predatory or deceptive and to review the specific behaviors that led to their inclusion. Do not use inclusion, or absence from the database, as the sole criterion for deciding whether to submit.
NLM Catalog: Journals in NCBI Databases
Use the National Library of Medicine's catalog to verify whether a journal is currently indexed in MEDLINE or deposited in PubMed Central. Remember that appearing in PubMed is not necessarily the same as being indexed in MEDLINE.
Use Ulrichsweb to review journal and publisher information, peer-review status, publication format, and abstracting and indexing services.
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
DOAJ indexes open-access journals that meet its criteria for transparency and publishing practice. Inclusion can be a useful positive indicator, but journal evaluation should still consider multiple factors.
Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and Web of Science
Use these resources to investigate citation-based journal metrics and journal influence. Journal Impact Factor is one journal-level indicator and should not be treated as a direct measure of the quality of an individual article or researcher.
This international initiative provides a practical checklist for assessing whether a journal or publisher is suitable and trustworthy.
Recognizing Predatory, Questionable, or Deceptive Journals
The term predatory journal is commonly used for journals or publishers that engage in deceptive or misleading practices to attract submissions or fees. Because publishing practices exist on a spectrum, and not every low-quality journal is predatory, it is better to evaluate the evidence rather than rely on a label alone. Open access itself is not a warning sign, and charging an article processing charge (APC) does not make a journal predatory.
Warning Signs to Investigate
- Unsolicited submission or editorial-board invitations that use excessive flattery or do not match your expertise.
- Promises of unrealistically rapid peer review or guaranteed publication.
- Peer-review procedures that are missing, vague, or inconsistent.
- Publication fees that are difficult to find, disclosed only after acceptance, or substantially different from advertised fees.
- Claims of MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, DOAJ, or other indexing that cannot be independently verified.
- Use of invented, misleading, or unverifiable "impact factors" or other metrics.
- An editorial board whose members or affiliations cannot be verified, or individuals listed without their knowledge.
- A journal title, website, or branding that appears designed to imitate an established journal.
- Publisher contact information that is incomplete, inconsistent, or difficult to verify.
- Poorly defined journal scope, unusually broad coverage, or published articles that do not match the stated scope.
Look at the overall pattern of evidence. Verify indexing and metrics independently, review recent articles, examine the editorial board and peer-review process, and ask your Library Liaison when you are uncertain.
For additional guidance, see Think. Check. Submit. and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.
Understanding Open Access Publishing
Open access (OA) makes scholarly work freely available to readers online. Open access is a publication and access model; it does not by itself indicate journal quality.
Who pays for publication? In traditional subscription publishing, readers or their libraries pay subscription fees to access journal content. In open-access publishing, articles are freely available to readers, but publication costs may be covered by authors, research funders, or other sources. Some open-access journals charge authors an article processing charge (APC), while others do not charge authors or readers.
- Gold Open Access: The final published article is openly available from the journal. Some journals charge an APC, while others do not.
- Hybrid Open Access: A subscription journal offers authors the option to make an individual article openly available, often through an APC or an institutional publishing agreement.
- Green Open Access: An author makes an allowed version of a work available through a repository or other permitted location, according to the journal's policy and applicable funder requirements.
Before Paying an APC Yourself
Check whether Mercer has a publishing agreement or other arrangement that may cover or reduce eligible open-access publication charges.
Protecting Your Intellectual Property
NIH Public Access Requirements
Important NIH Policy Update
The 2024 NIH Public Access Policy took effect July 1, 2025. For covered Author Accepted Manuscripts accepted for publication on or after that date, the manuscript must be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC) upon acceptance and made publicly available without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication.
Authors should consult the current NIH guidance for applicability, submission methods, rights, and compliance requirements. Journal open-access status alone does not necessarily establish NIH policy compliance.
Authorship, Contributor Roles, and AI
Authorship carries both credit and responsibility. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) provides widely used recommendations for determining authorship and acknowledging other contributors.
Use of AI-Assisted Technologies
Authors should follow the policies of the journal to which they are submitting. Current ICMJE recommendations state that AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for a work. Authors remain responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and appropriate attribution of submitted material and should disclose AI use as required by the journal and applicable guidance.
