Seven questions when deciding where to submit

The scientific publishing landscape is changing rapidly. Every day now I am receiving a handful of e-mail messages asking me to submit a manuscript to journals, the names of most I have never heard before. The vast majority, but maybe not all of them, are predatory open access publications (see http://scholarlyoa.com), which are proliferating at an ever-expanding rate. At the same time, established scientific publishers are also constantly growing, adding new titles to their portfolio of journals. Then there is the rapid growth of online only, open-access mega-journals that seek to publish research across the entire spectrum of science. In this rapidly expanding scientific publishing environment authors have many more choices when submitting a manuscript. More choice, however, can be difficult, because it means that more careful judgment may need to be applied. What should guide the decision for or against a particular venue of publication? Here is my personal list of seven questions you may want to consider prior to submission of a scientific manuscript:

1. Will my submission be handled, reviewed and adjudicated by people with sound and informed judgment?

Ideally, peer-review for an author is not something to be tolerated or survived, but an opportunity to prevent mistakes from being published and to find ways to improve a manuscript. The ingredients of successful peer review are therefore knowledgeable and experienced editors with good judgment and access to a committed and large reviewer pool.

2. Will publishing in this journal enhance my scientific reputation?

Of course, the reputation and impact factor is often a key consideration when selecting a journal. I noticed that some people at highly ranked research institutions tend to think that they are researchers of great repute merely by working there. However, isn't a research institution only as good as the people working there? The same applies to journals: a mediocre, let alone a flawed, paper that managed to slip into a highly reputed journal will not enhance one's reputation in the long run. And a great paper in a journal with a middling impact factor can lift not only an author's reputation, but also that of the journal. Maybe the key question here is: is there a good match between the significance and novelty of my manuscript's scientific contribution and the status of the journal?

3. Will my target audience take note of my publication?

With the ever-increasing number of scientific publications, having your peers become aware of your publication is more important than ever. Does my scientific community read this journal and peruse its table of contents regularly? Does this journal actively disseminate information on the article it publishes, e.g. by sending out e-mail alerts and media releases? Will my publication be indexed and therefore be searchable in databases such as Medline and Web of Science™? If my paper is published in a general science mega-journal, will my audience find it among the thousands of papers in unrelated fields?

4. Will my target audience be able to access and read my publication?

I have to admit that by working at an institution that has one of the best libraries anywhere, it is sometimes easy to forget that not everyone has as readily and freely available access to as many journals as I do. Most research in environmental science is publicly funded and the idea that it should be freely accessible has strong support in the community. Is a journal subscribed to by a large number of institutions? Are all papers published with open access or does at least the option exist to publish with open access? Does the publisher offer open access vouchers to authors working at institutions whose libraries are subscribers (such as the Royal Society of Chemistry's “Gold for Gold” programme http://www.rsc.org/publishing/librarians/goldforgold.asp)? Also, environmental problems are affecting developing countries to a significant extent and free access to research results is particularly important to scientists working in those regions. Is the journal available to developing countries for free, e.g. through a programme of the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INAPS, http://www.inasp.info/en/network/publishers/)?

5. What will it cost and who pays for it?

Scientific publishing is never for free, but who bears the cost varies; it is either covered directly by your research grant in the form of a publication fee or indirectly by your institutions' library in the form of journal subscriptions. In some circumstances an institution or organization subsidizes a journal's operation. Find out what your library pays for subscription to individual periodicals or a publisher's bundle of journals and weigh the reasonability of that cost vis-à-vis the usefulness of those publications to your research. Give preference to journals with lower cost/benefit ratios.

6. Who benefits from my scientific publication financially?

Is it a shady con artist behind a predatory journal that will publish anything as long as a publication fee is paid? Is it the shareholders of an international corporation? Or is it an organization, such as the Royal Society of Chemistry, where a non-for-profit publishing arm subsidizes other activities which promote and support the chemical sciences?

7. How long will it take from submission to publication?

This may be particularly relevant in very fast moving fields and when presenting research results where rapid publication is of the essence. It can also be important for students, if they require peer-reviewed publications for graduation.

I probably wouldn't pose these questions, if I weren't convinced that the journals published by the RSC will often fare very favorably in a well-considered decision of where to submit. I hope you will include Environ. Sci.: Processes & Impacts among your choices when deciding where to send your manuscript in 2015.

Finally, I would like to thank our associate editors and reviewers as well as the RSC editorial staff who have been working so hard in 2014 to assure that your answer to question number 1 will be a resounding ‘Yes’.

Frank Wania

Chair, Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts Editorial Board

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