Which Journal to Publish in?

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I recently completed some research work in the field of neuroscience, but I don't know a lot of details about which journals are more prestigious/harder to get published in. Of course I will be discussing this with my team members in the lab, but I was hoping to get some kind of an idea from you guys.

Maybe someone can post a list of Journals in order? (e.g. starting with Nature of course, including Science, J Neurosci, Cell, Neuron, Experimental Neurology, etc.)

Thanks in advance!!

 

[JETER]

Maybe someone can post a list of Journals in order? (e.g. starting with Nature of course, including Science, J Neurosci, Cell, Neuron, Experimental Neurology, etc.)

Thanks in advance!!

By order, I assume you are speaking of impact factor. From ISI W.O.K (http://isi17.isiknowledge.com/ ), the top 20 journals in neurosci ranked by i.f. are (2003):

Rank
Abbreviated Journal Title
Total Cites
Impact
Factor
Immediacy
Index
2003 Articles Cited
Half-life
1 ANNU REV NEUROSCI 7925 30.167 2.000 23 6.5
2 NAT REV NEUROSCI 4657 27.007 2.812 69 2.3
3 NAT NEUROSCI 13425 15.141 3.597 144 3.3
4 NEURON 40833 14.109 3.288 351 5.4
5 TRENDS NEUROSCI 14558 12.631 1.775 111 6.4
6 PROG NEUROBIOL 7047 12.327 0.550 40 5.7
7 BEHAV BRAIN SCI 3575 10.625 9.2
8 CURR OPIN NEUROBIOL 7432 9.727 0.838 99 4.7
9 FRONT NEUROENDOCRIN 1272 8.870 1.000 14 5.4
10 J NEUROSCI 86508 8.306 1.189 1288 5.3
11 BRAIN 20465 7.967 1.445 227 7.1
12 ANN NEUROL 24887 7.717 1.467 255 7.6
13 TRENDS COGN SCI 2720 7.528 0.952 105 3.7
14 BRAIN RES REV 5177 6.504 0.917 48 5.2
15 NEUROIMAGE 8895 6.192 0.364 483 3.3
16 HUM BRAIN MAPP 3567 6.058 0.889 72 5.2
17 BIOL PSYCHIAT 15855 6.039 0.729 292 5.2
18 CEREB CORTEX 6483 5.626 1.065 139 4.9
19 NEUROBIOL AGING 5141 5.552 1.024 124 6.1
20 MOL PSYCHIATR 3824 5.539 1.219 96 3.5

Hope this is what you are looking for

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Part of the decision depends on how broad your audience of interest is going to be. If the paper is likely to be of broad interest (and the work is novel and the science is rigorous), definitely go for the bigger journals such as Cell, Science, or Nature. If the paper is likely to be of interest to mainly neuroscientists, perhaps go for the more neuro specific journals. Of those, Nature Neurosci and Neuron are two of the big ones.

 

[doc05]

I'd say what matters even more is which journals are friendly with your PI. Most have a track record of publishing in a few select journals. Your PI should be doing this work anyway, since you have no experience and no idea. Good luck.

 

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Thanks for the replies everyone! We are thinking of either J Neurosci or Experimental Neurology (as recommended by my PI). How do these two compare to the other Neuosci journals?

btw, I'm happy to be publishing in any Neurosci journal, just figured I should know how difficult it is to publish in these...thanks again!