Publishing for the first time or getting back into it after not publishing for a while may make it difficult to navigate the journal selection process. One may find this task to be a burden since there are many different journals and options to choose from. Being able to determine the right journal for your research project requires some important considerations.
It is important to first view the big picture, and this begins with a discussion of the tiered system. Since journals are ranked differently, there is a distinct top tier. The well-known journals forming this class include Science and Nature, among others, which all have strong impact factors. These journals have also been around for many years and are here to stay. To have an article accepted to these top-tier journals, authors are required to submit a manuscript showcasing research of very high impact in their field. The research must be original, the manuscript should be written for a wide readership, and the English language writing needs to be flawless. The peer-review process will then proceed through a critical assessment by expert reviewers.
The middle tier encompasses a vast majority of highly respected journals that belong to the main publishing groups around the world. Their readership is usually emphasized to be within one’s specific field of research and involve a strong peer review. In these cases, the research is original and its impact is generally strong. I have typically noticed impact factors ranging from 2.0 to 14.0 for middle-tier journals and this may be field-specific. Two fields of research that I am part of are Medicinal Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The lower tier of journals categorizes a vast number of journals, and they are in this category for various reasons. Firstly, they may not be very prestigious. Some journals in this category have articles published with very poor-quality figures and/or containing grammatical errors in the writing. I have also observed articles that report on findings that do not contribute much to science. Other journals may have excellent standards but they are simply too new to be judged by the impact factor scale. Impact factors for this tier are usually less than 2.0 or do not have an impact factor at all.
The reality is that no one really desires to publish in the lower tier, but often, it may be unreasonable to expect to always publish in the top tier based on one’s research findings. Thus, I believe the middle tier is a starting ground for many researchers.
I have read various LinkedIn posts about the importance of not embracing the impact factor as a true judgment of the tier of a journal, and I agree that one should not embrace it solely. I believe that the impact factor is a very good metric, though. Folks writing these posts usually focus on the fact that some journals that are not that prestigious have somehow become of high value. They also argue that low impact factor values could be assigned to a journal that has historically been prestigious.
I know of some journals that used to be above a value of 2.0 but have now fallen below that number after the COVID-19 pandemic. One journal in particular still has high-quality editors on its editorial board but the reason they are below 2.0 seems to be rooted in the types of papers that are being accepted and that researchers in the community are simply not citing them that frequently. Or, it could be associated with the pandemic. These are some gray areas when we think of impact factors.
It is very important to pay attention to the prestigious journals in your field and to be able to understand their impact factor values as well. First, I recommend reading through the journal’s scope to verify whether your study meets the criteria set forth by the editor-in-chief that are important to successfully publish with that journal. Then, I recommend skimming through various journals and taking a closer look at the kind of quality of articles that are being published. You should ask yourself if you can imagine your work being side by side with these kinds of research articles.
Finally, it is also important to ascertain if the journal could possibly fold in the future. For new journals, this can certainly be a possibility and a lot of heavy thought should go into making this decision. One can submit their non-peer-reviewed manuscript to a preprint server, such as bioRxiv.org or preprints.org, to create a safety net in case a new journal may fold in the future. If this happens, you can send the preprint in for consideration to another journal.
An open access movement has ramped up efforts in recent years, which differs from the subscription-based model. Historically, authors would submit their manuscript to a journal, and once it has been accepted, the journal would publish the article under the subscription model, where readers would need to pay for access. The open access model is more appealing in my opinion because, even though a premium must be paid upfront (by the authors), it enables anyone across the world to view the research. It can be frustrating to not have access to certain articles when performing an online literature search and then having to wait several days to obtain the article through an interlibrary loan. These options are controlled by the publisher and some publishers may offer one or both models.
The cost for open access can vary depending on the journal as well. Usually, the fee increases when the journal is distributed to many online servers, such as Google Scholar, PubMed, etc., whereas the more affordable fees are assigned to journals that are not available on that many servers. This is where it becomes important to determine whether affordability matches good servers for distribution.
In conclusion, the upper-tier, middle-tier, and lower-tier journals can be a publication home for the work produced by a given researcher. This determination circles back to the study itself and how impactful it will be in one’s field of research.
As an example, in the Medicinal Chemistry field, I often study inhibition constant (Ki) values for enzyme–inhibitor interactions. In the case of finding strong inhibitor potency, if an inhibitor binds to an enzyme and has a Ki value in the hundreds of micromolar range (e.g., 500 μM), it is not considered that strong of an inhibitor. If the Ki value is in the tens of micromolar range (e.g., 50 μM), the inhibitor displays a modestly strong inhibition, but if the Ki value is found in the nanomolar range (e.g., 500 nM), it exhibits strong inhibition. In my field, I pay attention to this parameter because it is one criterion that helps me to determine which tier of journal I should publish in.
Finally, another important factor is that if an article is published in a lower-tier journal, it should not be something to look down on. When an author publishes their work, they are showing that they have been able to carry out the study and reach conclusions in science. This has important implications for students who are applying to industry or higher levels of academia. Hiring managers are focused on whether job applicants have published because they understand that they could carry out a project in its entirety.
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Last updated on: July 25, 2026