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.