N - Choosing a journal

Writing a research paper is one thing; getting it published and read is another matter. Choosing a suitable journal has always been a challenge for researchers, but with the increasing number of journals and alternate publishing avenues available, that choice may be harder than ever. Journal editors can and do give guidance, but it can be difficult to know where to start. Edanz, the editing services company, has a new tool called the Journal Advisor, which uses “cutting edge semantic technology” to pick a suitable journal for your manuscript. A similar tool, JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator) was developed a few years ago by the Dutch Biosemantics Group. So how do the systems compare? I asked both to suggest a journal based on the abstract of a certain well-known 1953 paper by Crick & Watson, and I received completely different top-10 suggestions from the two systems. Maybe helpful colleagues still have a role to play?

Comments