Evaluating Journals
Journal: A publication that is produced at regular intervals on a specialized topic. Journals are often published by a professional
association, society, foundation, or institute. A refereed journal or peer-reviewed journal is one in which the process to determine if an
article will be accepted for publication is done by professional colleagues, or peers (also known as the peer review process). Sometimes
these periodicals are also called scholarly journals or academic journals.
Where do you find out more about a journal, its biases, and its editorial policy and publishing criteria? A good place to check is either the
front inside cover or back inside cover of the latest issues of a journal, the Web site of the journal,
or web site of the publisher of the journal. Often you can find the editorial policy there as well as other information about the mission and
scope of the journal.
Some Suggested Criteria for Evaluating Journals
- Publisher: Who is the publisher of the journal? Is it society- or university-sponsored? What is the importance of the society or
university to the discipline? What is the mission of the sponsoring organization? Is it a commercial venture?
- Editor and editorial board: What are the qualifications of the editor and the editorial board? Are they prominent members of the
profession?
- Review process: Are contributions to the journal refereed (i.e., does the journal require each article to be submitted to a process of
critical evaluation by one or more experts in the subject, known as a referees, to determine if it is worthy of publication?) What is the
review process? Who determines what is published, a panel of reviewers or the journal editor?
What percentage of papers are accepted for publication?
- Currency: How often is the journal published? What is the delay time between a manuscript being received, accepted, and published?
- Audience: For what audience is the journal intended? Does the content of the articles support the intended audience?
- Type of articles: What kind of articles are included? Case reports? Research articles? Methodology articles? Review articles? Book reviews? News notes? Letters to the editor? Advertising?
- Access: Is the journal indexed in major indexes such as PsycInfo, Education Abstracts, Social Science Citation Index, etc.?
- Format: What is the format of the journal? Printed? Electronic? Both? Are you able to access the full-text the day the journal is released?
Are there any differences between the print and the online version?
You can find a description of a specific journal using Ulrich's Online,
an international periodical directory, available online through the
Western Libraries database page. [http://www.library.wwu.edu/lmt/subjects.phtml] Search this directory of over 240,000 periodical publications for more information about a journal title,
including whether it is a refereed publication. This is not an article database - it provides information about journals - not the journal
contents.
Another good source for learning more about a particular journal is
Magazines for Libraries, a publication that evaluates journals. You will
find this reference book in most major community college and academic libraries
and larger public libraries.
Katz, W.A., & LaGuardia, C. (Eds.). (2003).
Magazines for libraries :
for the general reader and school, junior college, college, university, and
public libraries (12th ed.).
New Providence, N.J. : R. R. Bowker.
Last Updated: 04/09/2004
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