用关键词检索Pubmed数据库只找到很少几个类似研究(鉴于该案例为虚构,当不足为奇),不过仍然指出了几个潜在期刊,如《Journal of Neuroscience》,《European Journal of Neuroscience》,《Neuroscience, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications》,《Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Neuropharmacology》和《Journal of the Neurological Sciences》。
其中,《Journal of Neuroscience》和《European Journal of Neuroscience》可能要求更多数据,比如显示与某人类疾症的相关性和/或细胞死亡相关机制的详尽分析,不过后者尚有发表可能,也许值得投去试试。《Journal of the Neurological Sciences》更关注临床,所以只有当OA处理已知是某个疾病的良好模型时,才可考虑投到这个期刊。但是,如果该研究确实显示存在这种关联,这是一个很好的目标期刊。《Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications》的范围较广,发表各种生物领域的研究;神经生物学属于其兴趣领域,且该期刊表明它致力于迅速传播成果。对于希望尽快从编辑部获得回应或希望尽快发表论文的作者,这可能是一个很好的初步目标期刊。如果行为学数据较为新颖,《Neurobiology of Learning and Memory》也可以是一个很好的目标;该刊的“外联部”的答复速度很快,也很适合需要尽快发表的作者。最后,若结果中揭示“神经系统是如何运作的”等方面的内容,《Neuroscience》就是一个很好的目标期刊,因此,根据终稿的侧重点(如临床vs神经生物学vs行为学)和作者的需求(影响因子和出版时间),可以将候选期刊按照其适合程度排序。
英文原文 Choosing the right platform
Selection of an appropriate journal and publication type is critical: get it right and you instantly increase your chances of successful publication and regular citation. By contrast, sending a manuscript to an inappropriate journal is a frequent cause of rejection. The aims and scope of the journal, the journal’s target audience and recent publication history, the significance and broadness of appeal of the findings described in your manuscript, and the type of study performed should all be considered before selecting your target journal.
Start by considering what the main focus of your paper is, and therefore, who you would expect to want to read it. This should be clear from the results you have obtained and your knowledge of the current literature in the same field. Is there a clinical focus or do you describe basic science findings? Are the findings of relevance to a broad cross-section of the scientific community or will they only appeal to researchers in a specialist field? Are the findings preliminary, with more work required to make an irrefutable and comprehensive story, or do you have multiple types of complementary data to support your hypothesis? Indeed, do you need to publish right away, or can you delay publication while collecting more data to try for a journal with a higher impact factor? By asking yourself these questions, among others, you will be able to build up a picture of the type of journal you should be targeting. Then, you need to generate a short-list.
An immediate source of potential target journals is in your own paper’s reference list. Any similar or related previous work should have been cited in your study; identify those studies and the journals they were published in. Some journals will appear more than once, and these are likely candidates. Another way to identify candidate journals is performing keyword searches in literature databases such as Medline and PubMed. Again, journals that appear repeatedly are potentially suitable. Of course, journals that haven’t previously published in the same area of research might equally be interested in your findings; the best way to identify these is to search or browse your library’s journal shelves, Thompson ISI databases, including the Science Citation Index, or the websites of major publishers (see below, but note that these are just a few of many publishers of academic journals). You should be able to recognize journals that might be appropriate based on your answers to the questions above.
Now that you have a short-list of possible target journals and a clear picture of the type of journal your study would be suitable for, you need to merge the two to see where they correspond. Journal websites generally contain and ‘aims and scope’ section and occasionally describe their target audience. They will usually also contain information on impact factor, publication types, publication frequency, time from acceptance to publication, rejection rates, and publication charges. All of these factors need to be weighed up. For example, if you require rapid publication, you should specifically look for journals that offer fast response times and short periods from acceptance to publication like Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. If you are on a tight budget you may need to rule out open access journals or journals that have high publication charges. If you require publication in a journal with an impact factor above a certain level, you can instantly rule out any with impact factors lower than that. Study the journal websites closely and consider why the editors and readers of each would be interested in your findings; as well as giving you an angle for the approach in your cover letter (see the previous post on journal cover letters and a free example letter here), this will help you decide which of the remaining journals in your short-list is the most relevant platform from which to disseminate your findings. When your short-list has been reduced to two or three journals on the basis of the above criteria, you should rank them as first, second and third choices based on your particular requirements. Then you are ready to write your cover letter and submit your manuscript!
To assist you in this process, Edanz has developed a Journal Selection Tool that is free to use at: http://www.liwenbianji.cn/journal_selector.
Helpful Links To search or browse Science Citation Index journals: http://science.thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jloptions.cgi?PC=K Thompson ISI searchable databases: http://science.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/ US National Library of Medicine database PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ Elsevier journal titles: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journal_browse.cws_home Science Direct: http://www.sciencedirect.com/ Wiley-Interscience journals: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/browse/?type=JOURNAL Springer: http://www.springer.com/?SGWID=5-102-0-0-0
Example The following manuscript title was used in the exercise accompanying the section on writing a good title: “Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration”. This imaginary study showed degeneration of neurons in the CA3 and dentate gyrus regions of the hippocampus after administration of the toxin okadoic acid, let us assume in mice. It also showed involvement of a MAP kinase-dependent pathway in this neurodegeneration.
Without a functional correlate of the neuronal cell loss, the study would be considered very preliminary and would be difficult to publish; thus, let us assume that behavioral studies were also performed and that these showed deficits in learning and memory in mice administered the toxin. Therefore, the data shown are histological, biochemical and behavioral.
A keyword search of the PubMed database throws out very little in the way of similar studies (not surprisingly given that the example study is imagined), but does point to potential journals such as the Journal of Neuroscience, European Journal of Neuroscience, Neuroscience, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Neuropharmacology and the Journal of the Neurological Sciences. Among these, the Journal of Neuroscience and the European Journal of Neuroscience are likely to require more data, perhaps showing relevance to a human disease or condition and/or an exhaustive analysis of the mechanisms involved in the cell death, although the latter journal is a possibility and might be worth an initial submission. The Journal of the Neurological Sciences has more of a clinical focus and should only be considered if administration of OA was known to provide a good model of a particular disease or condition. However, if such a link was shown, this journal would represent a good target. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications has a broad focus, publishing studies in diverse fields of biological research; however, neurobiology is one of their areas of interest and they claim to be devoted to rapid dissemination of results. For authors who want a quick answer or who need to publish soon, this could represent a good initial target journal. Depending on the novelty of the behavioral data, the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory could be a good target; with a rapid communications section, this journal could also suit those authors in need of immediate publication. Finally, Neuroscience represents a good target journal if the findings reveal aspects of ‘how the nervous system works’. Thus, depending on the focus of the final paper (eg. clinical vs neurobiological vs behavioral) and the authors’ requirements (impact factor and time to publication), the candidate journals selected can be ranked in terms of their suitability.