Medical Subject Areas: Publishing in Medicine

This Library Guide supports the College of Medicine's curriculum for the Foundational and Clinical Sciences. URL: https://libguides.cmich.edu/med_disciplines

Journal Suggestion Tools

Finding a Journal

When finding a journal to submit your manuscript, you must carefully consider the journal's scope. "Out of scope" is one of the most common reasons for manuscript rejection. Each journal's web page will have a statement of scope, as well as guidance for what research topics and methodologies the journal will accept. To get a starting list of journals to consider, check your references list. If journals from that list are cited frequently, it may be a good fit for your research as well.

For more help in choosing a journal, including looking up journals by title, see some of the CMU Libraries resources below.

More Help from CMU Libraries

Traditional, Open Access, and Hybrid Publishing

Not every peer-reviewed journal offers open access, and therefore, not every journal will require an article processing charge (APC) to publish!

The models for publishing an article in a journal are either traditional, open access, or hybrid. For every legitimate journal, the publishing mode does not impact the peer review process: the article is peer-reviewed before it is accepted to be published, and there is no cost for an article to be peer-reviewed.

Once an article has been accepted, how the article is made available will be determined by the publishing mode.

Traditional

In this model, there is no fee for the author. The journal charges a fee to readers, either through a subscription (paid by an individual, or by a library on behalf of their population) or as an individual payment. In some cases the article will eventually become open access, usually after an embargo period of 6 months to several years.

Open Access

In this model, there is no fee for the reader. The articles are made available online to anyone with an internet connection. To cover costs, the author pays an article processing charge or APC. This fee is usually several thousand dollars. The article will be available open access upon payment.

Hybrid

In this model, authors have the option to either publish in the traditional model or the open access model. Please note that although a hybrid journal may have an APC, if they choose the traditional method, authors would not have to pay.

Did you know: CMU has an institutional fellowship with BMJ Case Reports? This allows you to submit case reports to the journal without having to pay individual fellowship fees. If you would like to submit a case report to the journal, contact Medical Librarian Rebecca Renirie (hill2ra@cmich.edu) for the fellowship code.

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