Questions to ask before submitting your work
(Thanks to Scholarly Communications: Book Publishing Researcher Guide and Publishing Academic Research)
Locating a journal to publish your research can be a challenge. One source is Article Publishing Discount for Michigan authors. This provides links to several publishers with discount information for UM affiliates.
NOTE: always check with your college or department in case there are specific journals you are required to submit your research.
Find a Journal in your research area
Is the journal indexed in a reputable subject database? Examples:
Search Find Database by Subject section on the library's web page. Start with the Recommended Database featured in each category. Most databases have a section with their journal titles and other sources that are indexed or published in the database.
If you have the name of a journal, try the publisher's website.
Contact your subject librarian for questions about how to locate information on a journal.
Directories
Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory - Directory of current and ceased serial publications in print and e-journals.. Look for referred symbol 
and the Abstract/Index section in the journal record. Ulrich's doesn't rank journals, but provides information about them.
Elsevier Journal Finder - Type in the title of your paper, parts of the abstract, choose a subject area. Journal title suggestions will appear if your information matches.
Directory of Open Access Publishers - Free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. More than 6,250 journals are included in the directory with nearly 3,000 journals searchable at article level. DOAJ aims to cover all subjects and languages.
Wiley Journal Finder - Wiley journal publications. Search by title or subject. Also includes metrics, publishing times, etc.
Manuscript Matcher Databases
Taylor & Francis Journal Suggester - Search by pasting your full abstract, or keywords from you paper.
Web of Science - Find journals relevant to your research using Manuscript Matcher. Does the title of your work have at least 10 words, and your abstract has at least 100? Manuscript Matcher helps you find the most related journals for your manuscript. Using this information, it will pull the most relevant keywords for matching (from WOS website).
Wiley (Beta) - Locate journals from Wiley publishers that match your manuscript.
Found your journal?
Check the "Aims & Scope" and "Editorial Board" sections of the journal. This can help you determine if your research matches the scope of the journal.
The key difference between the traditional publishing model and and the open access (OA) publishing model is that the traditional model requires an institutional or personal subscription to access the research, whereas open access research can be accessed without subscription or fee. Instead, many open access publishers charge a publishing fee called an article processing fee (APC) for each article published. Some journals are completely OA, while others use a hybrid model that includes both APCs and a subscription to access content.
Our campus supports APCs for a select group of publishers. A list can be found here, Article Publishing Discounts for Michigan Authors
Public Access/Open Access Requirements
If you received funding to support your research, it is very likely you will be subject to an open access or public access requirement. Many funding agencies have policies that require recipients publicly share the results of their research (the resulting publications and/or the underlying data).
Unsure if you’re required to share your publications?
Reputable scholarly OA journals can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and many of their publishers are also members of COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).
This page includes suggestions of how to find publications for your work.
No matter where you plan to submit your work for publication, remember to evaluate carefully.
We recommend using Think, Check, Submit, which includes useful checklists for you to use. The slides below explain how to consider a publication before you submit your work.
