Scholars have increasing opportunities to publish their work both in traditionally published and online only journals. Journal publishers such as Oxford, Wiley, Elsevier, and professional association journals increase opportunities in open access or hybrid journals. Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities is one of many sources to consult for selecting the right journal in social sciences. There are also useful online resources to guide authors in selecting a journal for publishing their research.
Sherpa/Romeo is a database of publisher contracts and copyright agreements. It can be searched by journal title or publisher with direct linking to publishers' journal websites. It may help you identify the copyright permissions conditions you may prefer. See our page where the Creative Commons options are explained.
See our Where to Publish My Article? page for ways to discover logical journals to which you might submit your manuscript.
The four tools listed below use similar searching algorithms to find the best journals by matching the abstracts or titles of manuscripts.
JANE: Journal/Author Name Estimator identifies potential journals by entering a text, key words or title of a paper to be published and comparing it to similar texts in MEDLINE to find the best matches.
Elsevier Journal Finder works on the same principle as JANE but allows limiting the selection to disciplines.
Springer Journal Selector --- similar to Elsevier tool trying to match the manuscript abstract or title with 2,600 Springer publications.
Edanz Journal Selector will find a journal match in 18,000 journals.
archived version of the Beall's list - a list of potential predatory publishers created by a librarian
An excellent introduction with a listing of print-on-demand publishers originally compiled by a librarian.
A new initiative (of questionable quality) is Bona Fide Journals. Starting with all 42,000 journals in QOAM, the idea is to indicate the journals in the list which are deemed non-predatory, either because they are no-fee journals or because they are approved by library professionals. Unfortunately, they only look at Open Access journals -- as there are many dubious commercial journals that should be reviewed. In addition, inclusion within a library subscription package should not immediately indicate high quality.
See our Where to Publish My Article? page for ways to discover logical journals to which you might submit your manuscript.
Also consider looking at ranked journals in disciplines at the following sites: Journal Ranking and Journal Ranking (Google Scholar).