Journal Selection

[bcliff]

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I'm currently working on two manuscripts. One as first author and the second as second author. Both manuscripts focus on similar issues (My main area of interest) and could both be submit to the same journal and fair equally well.

My question is: Does it make a difference to either have these articles published in the same journal, or to have them published in separate journals? My thinking was that having articles in two separate journals would increase article's readership, while having two articles in the same journal may impress those who see my name twice in the same journal (Kind of hokey, I know).

I'm sure that as researchers advance in their careers, these types of questions become increasingly irrelevant, but given that these will be my first two publications, I want to be sure to get the most intellectual bang for my buck - Is there a rule that diversity of journals is a definite 'pro' (I can't really imagine why it wouldn't be?) - Thanks!

 

[cara susanna]

Go by impact factor. Is it a high IF? If so, then I'd submit both there. Honestly, you're probably not going to get both accepted by the same journal anyway--most articles get rejected their first time around.

 

[deleted343839]

Publish your papers in the best (read: top ranked, most prestigious) journals you can get into. This advice applies at all stages of your career. When you are a faculty member, you may be judged by the impact factor of the journals in which you have published. (If you don't know what an impact factor is, run over to Wikipedia.)

Generally, a good strategy is to generate a list of 3-5 journals that are relevant to your work - ask your faculty advisor and mentors for advice. You might want to omit any journals that have a reputation for being extremely slow unless they are good journals and there is a reasonable chance of acceptance. Then, rank the journals based on prestige. Submit your work to the top journal and cross your fingers that it at least gets sent out for peer review. It may be rejected, but you might also receive some helpful feedback that you can incorporate prior to submitting to your second pick journal. It seldom hurts to "aim high" as long as you don't waste your time on a journal that is not relevant or is a ridiculously long shot. Work your way down the list until you get a revise/resubmit or similar decision.

You can submit your manuscripts simultaneously, but this can be risky if they are similar in important ways. (Not sure whether this applies in your case.) First, journal editors (and maybe reviewers) could notice the similarities and might wonder whether you are carving up what should really be one manuscript. Second, if both papers rely on a theory or methodology that doesn't sit well with outside experts in the field, it's better to get a good critique of the first one from at least one journal and correct course before submitting the second.

In the end, no matter where you publish, the total number of eyes on your paper is going to be pretty low. However, you have a better shot of being read - and cited - if you publish in a more highly ranked journal.

So again, publish in the "best" journal you can - and if that strategy results in two publications in the same journal, so be it. At this stage in your career, the diversity of your publication outlets doesn't matter as much as their quality.

 

[bcliff]

Publish your papers in the best (read: top ranked, most prestigious) journals you can get into. This advice applies at all stages of your career. When you are a faculty member, you may be judged by the impact factor of the journals in which you have published. (If you don't know what an impact factor is, run over to Wikipedia.)

Generally, a good strategy is to generate a list of 3-5 journals that are relevant to your work - ask your faculty advisor and mentors for advice. You might want to omit any journals that have a reputation for being extremely slow unless they are good journals and there is a reasonable chance of acceptance. Then, rank the journals based on prestige. Submit your work to the top journal and cross your fingers that it at least gets sent out for peer review. It may be rejected, but you might also receive some helpful feedback that you can incorporate prior to submitting to your second pick journal. It seldom hurts to "aim high" as long as you don't waste your time on a journal that is not relevant or is a ridiculously long shot. Work your way down the list until you get a revise/resubmit or similar decision.

You can submit your manuscripts simultaneously, but this can be risky if they are similar in important ways. (Not sure whether this applies in your case.) First, journal editors (and maybe reviewers) could notice the similarities and might wonder whether you are carving up what should really be one manuscript. Second, if both papers rely on a theory or methodology that doesn't sit well with outside experts in the field, it's better to get a good critique of the first one from at least one journal and correct course before submitting the second.

In the end, no matter where you publish, the total number of eyes on your paper is going to be pretty low. However, you have a better shot of being read - and cited - if you publish in a more highly ranked journal.

So again, publish in the "best" journal you can - and if that strategy results in two publications in the same journal, so be it. At this stage in your career, the diversity of your publication outlets doesn't matter as much as their quality.

I appreciate the feedback!
The one manuscript that I'm second author on has had a lot of input from the two PI's (third & fourth author) who are both MD/PhD's and the manuscript that I'm first author on is carved out of my UG thesis, so I am more worried about that one being accepted into any journal than I am about the second manuscript. The journal I was planning to submit my thesis to has a lower IF than the one we're planning to submit the second manuscript to, but I feel better about the second manuscript getting accepted just from the quality of the data, subsequent analyses, and large sample (n=2100).

My thesis has a much smaller sample (n=80) and is from a totally different study and dataset. My mentor/PI on that study feels like the journal I'm submitting to has a pretty good chance of accepting our work, so fingers crossed that we'll get an R&R. I'm still in the process of editing both manuscripts, but hope to have them ready to send off by the end of the year. I'm planning to apply to grad programs that begin in Fall '15, so I'm hoping to have at least one of these papers in publication by the time I'm sending out applications, which should be roughly 18 months from now. Does that seem too farfetched of a goal?
Thanks again!

 

[cara susanna]

Depends, really. The peer review process can take 6 months for the initial review, then if you have a revise and resubmit it can take up to 2 months to revise, then it may have to be reviewed again, then you might have accept with revisions (usually the deadline for revisions is 2 months). I think that 18 months is doable, but it depends on the editor's decision and how long that first review process takes.

 

[Ollie123]

Time to getting it out varies widely. Psychology journals (and APA journals in particular) are notoriously sluggish which hurts both their impact factor and to some degree their reputation (I know many people who have gotten so fed up they don't submit there often anymore). In contrast, one of my mentors had a JAMA article that only took something like 6-7 weeks from when it was first submitted to when the PRINT version came out. 2 week initial review, 1 week turnaround for the R&R, online almost immediately and in print a couple weeks later.

6 months is a horrendous time for initial review...the vast majority of journals won't be anywhere near that. I'd say 2-3 months is the norm for initial review, most give 1-2 months for you to do revisions and from there it just depends on whether they need to go back to reviewers. It could be in press almost immediately upon sending in the revision or you could end up going back and forth for a year or longer. The upside to aiming high is the better journals (Note: Not the better APA journals) are usually better about getting back to you quickly.

As others have said - I'd just aim for the best journal you can get it into, whatever that may be. If you are applying to psychology programs it can be good to get it into an APA journal despite the PITA nature of it and the generally mediocre impact factors. At that level a first author anyplace legit looks good though and if its a high impact journal no one is going to care if its APA or not. As a general rule I think any IF over 2 is at least viewed as okay. Between 1 and 2 is not going to be viewed well but isn't going to be a negative unless you are exclusively publishing in those sorts of places. <1 is generally a sign it wasn't worth writing up in the first place.

 

[Marissa4usa]

As others have said - I'd just aim for the best journal you can get it into, whatever that may be. If you are applying to psychology programs it can be good to get it into an APA journal despite the PITA nature of it and the generally mediocre impact factors. At that level a first author anyplace legit looks good though and if its a high impact journal no one is going to care if its APA or not. As a general rule I think any IF over 2 is at least viewed as okay. Between 1 and 2 is not going to be viewed well but isn't going to be a negative unless you are exclusively publishing in those sorts of places. <1 is generally a sign it wasn't worth writing up in the first place.

This has been said before on this board but it largely depends on your subfield. In my specific area there is almost no journal with an impact factor over 2 and another specific one I can think of has an IF of <1 and big names in my field frequently publish in that journal. I'm not sure why that is, but the safest thing is to probably ask your mentor.

 

[cara susanna]

6 months is terrible, but I've encountered it a lot.

 

[Pragma]

6 months is terrible, but I've encountered it a lot.

I think that happened to me once. Usually 2-3 months. My fastest review was back in about 1 month, IIRC.

I've seen them take 2 months, me submit revisions, then have it take another 2 months for the next stage of review. Usually I assume that is because the peer reviewers are taking their time.

 

[psychRA]

6 months is terrible, but I've encountered it a lot.

I've had plenty of 6 month experiences as well. I think it may also vary depending on your specific area. I'm a smallish (but not tiny) research topic, and while there are enough researchers to sustain multiple journals, I wonder if there just aren't enough eager reviewers to ensure a rapid turnaround. Also, the strongest journal in my research area has an IF that is barely above 2.0, I believe.

To the OP: if you're planning to apply in about 18 months, I'm guessing your goal is to have these two papers in press or published by then. If so, I'd recommend against submitting them to the same journal. In my opinion, if the papers are very similar, any one journal is unlikely to take both of them. I suppose you could submit them both to the same place in the hopes that one of them will be chosen for a revise and resubmit. In the meantime, though, the paper that isn't chosen may be stuck in reviewer limbo for several months instead of going through the review process at another journal.

 

[Ollie123]

I agree that IF varies across areas (and psychology as a whole is notoriously low) but how are people defining their research area? I'm genuinely curious what are these areas where the "top" journals have IFs in the 1-2 range (feel free to PM if not comfortable identifying your area on here). I get it for certain extremely specific areas (e.g. "Teaching of Psychology" has a low IF just due to the nature of the topic) but these seem like the exception rather than the rule and are usually not primary outlets for people.

Perhaps if one is studying normative populations its different but looking across a pretty fair range of disorders/topics and I don't see many journals with IFs < 2. Or perhaps people are just defining their area more narrowly? I always assumed most of us shared the same "Top journals" (assuming we're studying psychopathology). Abnormal for laboratory work, JCCP for treatment work, Health Psychology for health-based work, etc. within APA journals. Obviously we're not exclusively publishing in those outlets but that's usually where we are aiming when a study work out. Even at the disorder level it seems like most disorders have plenty of relevant journals with IFs > 2, as do virtually all of the more general-interest clinical journals - these are generally where we are looking for smaller-scale stuff or things that don't go the way we want.

This isn't meant to be accusatory/inflammatory, I'm just genuinely curious what people are studying where the journals have such low IFs. Does it seem to hurt people on the academic job market? I imagine it would make things particularly rough in med centers where IFs are usually higher to begin with and its given greater emphasis.

 

[Member6523]

6 months is terrible, but I've encountered it a lot.

That's an advantage to psychiatry, neurology, and other AMA journals...faster turnarounds. Higher impact factors overall too. Though they primarily benefit if you if you are going the AMC route...I understand they don't carry quite as much weight in psychology departments. Though they certainly look good in grant applications and no psychology department is going to frown at a nice R grant...

 

[WisNeuro]

I would caution against the 'just go with the highest IF you can' mindset. The IF index is rife with problems. BMJ even had an entire issue devoted to the problems with IF. I'd say go with the journal in which you'd get the highest exposure to the people that you want to read it. In other words, what journal do the people in your specialty field read. Go for those.

 

[Ollie123]

I would caution against the 'just go with the highest IF you can' mindset. The IF index is rife with problems. BMJ even had an entire issue devoted to the problems with IF. I'd say go with the journal in which you'd get the highest exposure to the people that you want to read it. In other words, what journal do the people in your specialty field read. Go for those.

I would generally agree, but with the caveat that (for better or worse) its a big consideration by many employers when deciding who to hire/promote. I think this is especially true in AMC settings where hiring and promotion decisions often entail people across wildly divergent fields (e.g. our division includes everything from molecular genetics and biostatistics, to psychology and health economics). People don't know the journals outside their field and IF is one thing they look at (though it seems like other - arguably at least somewhat better - indices are becoming more and more popular). I've always been told that especially early in your career, its important to "aim high" in terms of IF since you never know what will make or break a job application given how stiff the competition is these days.

 

[WisNeuro]

I would generally agree, but with the caveat that (for better or worse) its a big consideration by many employers when deciding who to hire/promote. I think this is especially true in AMC settings where hiring and promotion decisions often entail people across wildly divergent fields (e.g. our division includes everything from molecular genetics and biostatistics, to psychology and health economics). People don't know the journals outside their field and IF is one thing they look at (though it seems like other - arguably at least somewhat better - indices are becoming more and more popular).

That wouldn't make much sense though since different fields have vastly different IF ranges and means for the most part. These aren't apples to apples comparisons. If you're playing for the long game, your name being known to people in your field is more important than your tally of IF. Especially when you may see IF die within your career lifetime. Check out the San Francisco DORA.

 

[Ollie123]

I'm not (by any means) saying it makes sense, I'm saying that whether it makes sense or not...it happens. Its certainly unfortunate, but most early-career folks I know are way more worried about getting a TT job, securing that first R01 at a time when funding is at an all-time low, and getting tenured, than about their long-term impact shaping the field. That stinks and I'm glad we're starting to see more recognition of that problem but I maintain its a risky endeavor for a grad student/junior faculty to refuse to play the game to some extent. I'm certainly not willing to roll the dice on that one. Particularly given as long as its indexed by major search engines I'm not convinced actual journal name even makes a big difference in whether or not things get read/cited these days. Its not like anyone combs through issues of journals when writing a paper these days (which is why outlet used to matter more).