PLOS ONE or specialty journal

[alt91119]

I will be submitting a first author journal article in the coming weeks. My PI has left the target journal largely up to to me. In my particular field of bioengineering, the "specialty journals" all have impact factors of around 0.8-3.0. PLOS ONE actually has a slightly higher impact factor (3.2) than the specialty journals associated with my research, and likely a much higher acceptance rate.

My research is in a field I intend to continue to do research in (and practice medicine in) throughout the rest of my career. With residency applications etc in mind, would PLOS ONE be a wise choice here or would it be better to aim for a specialty journal with a lower impact factor that people in my field will likely recognize more later on?

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[Doug Underhill]

It depends: for med school, getting it accepted is more important than impact factor. I feel like the research you do in med school will be more important for residency.

 

[NotASerialKiller]

Keep in mind you're submitting it to where you'd like it to be considered, not where it will be accepted. Unless you're in some huge rush you should submit to PLOS ONE and then if it gets rejected try your next top choice etc. etc. until it finally gets published in a journal distributed exclusively in romansh.

Even if the decision is up to you, you should ask your PI where it actually has a chance, he/she will generally have a better sense of that than you. If PLOS ONE is a reach but possible, then start there.

 

[alt91119]

Keep in mind you're submitting it to where you'd like it to be considered, not where it will be accepted. Unless you're in some huge rush you should submit to PLOS ONE and then if it gets rejected try your next top choice etc. etc. until it finally gets published in a journal distributed exclusively in romansh.

Even if the decision is up to you, you should ask your PI where it actually has a chance, he/she will generally have a better sense of that than you. If PLOS ONE is a reach but possible, then start there.

I'm saying it would actually be easier to get accepted in PLOS ONE despite the higher impact factor. My field of research just has abysmally low impact factors even in the best journals for the field. So the question was "easier acceptance with higher impact factor" or "harder acceptance but journal recognized more by people in the field I want to enter"

 

[Doug Underhill]

They're not saying PLoS One is a reach. PLoS One is often regarded as an easier journal to get accepted to as a result of the high volume it publishes. Somehow, their field has even lower impact factors than PLoS One.

 

[Holmwood]

Publish in whatever journal your main citations are publishing at.