Resources for Authors

Journal Abbreviations / Instructions to Authors

Author Evaluation, Impact Factors, & Publishing Tools

Predatory Journals

Peer Review Resources

Author Identifiers and Publication Lists

Kudos: Support for Increasing the Reach and Impact of Your Publications

Journal Abbreviations/Instructions to Authors

  • All That JAS - A registry of web resources that list or provide access to the full title of journal or conference proceedings abbreviations.
  • Biological Journal Abbreviations - Abbreviations, full titles, and links to Web pages for a variety of biological and medical journals, maintained and edited by Geoffrey Patton, PhD.
  • CAS Source Index (CASSI) Search Tool - A free online resource intended for researchers to quickly identify or confirm journal titles and abbreviations for publications indexed by CAS since 1907, including serial and non-serial scientific and technical publications.
  • Instructions to Authors - From the Mulford Health Science Library, University of Toledo, this site offers links to instructions to authors for over 6,000 titles in the health and life sciences. All links are to "primary sources" - that is, to publishers and organizations with editorial responsibilities for the titles.
  • NCBI Journals Database - Available from the PubMed interface, enter the full or partial journal name in the search box. Click the journal title to display additional information about the journal.
  • Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals - International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Resources for Authors including general guidelines on the format of manuscripts submitted to medical journals. (ICMJE revision December 2018)

 

Author Evaluation, Impact Factors, & Publishing Tools

  • The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and citation impact of the published body of work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications. The index can also be applied to the productivity and impact of a scholarly journal as well as a group of scientists, such as a department or university or country. The index was suggested in 2005 by Jorge E. Hirsch. a physicist at UCSD, as a tool for determining theoretical physicists' relative quality and is sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number.
    • The h-index can be manually determined using databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Each database may produce a different h for the same author, because of different coverage.
    • Scopus: use Author Search. In the list of authors that comes up in the search results, click on Details. The Details page provides both the times cited and the h-index, with links to graphs and tables.
    • Web of Science: Register for ResearcherID to get your bibliometric data and to learn how to find h-index information in WOS. ResearcherID will automatically update times cited counts and citation metrics as data is updated in Web of Science.
    • Google Scholar: Use the Author name field in the Advanced Search form. Google Scholar provides only citation counts for individual articles, not an author's entire career.
  • Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE) - A free resource tool for finding the perfect journal in which to publish your research, from The Biosemantics Group. Copy and paste your manuscript's abstract or type in the key concepts of your paper. You will get a list of journals, sorted by confidence score, once you click the Find Journals button. Learn more about JANE.
  • Journal Citation Reports (JCR) - via ISI's Web of Science interface provides "Impact Factors" & "Journal Rankings," to help evaluate scholarly journals, using citation data from over 8,400 journals. A higher impact factor generally indicates that this journal's articles have been cited more. (NIH/NCI-F)
  • NCI at Frederick Scientific Publications - The NCI at Frederick Scientific Publications database is a collection of citations for publications authored by employees of the National Cancer Institute at Frederick from 1997 through the present. If you have any questions about the content of this resource, please contact the Library.

 

Predatory Journals

 

Peer Review Resources

  1. Speed. Immediate publication, following a brief internal review; all submissions will initially be labelled as 'awaiting peer review'.
  2. Peer review. Submissions will go into a rapid, formal, and open peer review process post-publication to eliminate delays and injustices that often arise in the standard closed peer review system.
  3. Research types. A variety of types of research findings will be accepted, from traditional articles to null/negative findings, to replicate/refutation findings.
  4. Primary data. Sharing, publication and refereeing of datasets, in the form of separate data papers, to foster collaboration and accelerate scientific discovery.
  • Nature's Peer Review Debate - This Nature web debate, held in 2006, consists of 22 articles of analyses and perspectives from leading scientists, publishers and other stakeholders to address these questions. Visit the Peer-to-Peer blog (archive, blog now closed) to join the debate.
  • Nature article - "There's a time to be critical," Nature 473 (19 May) 253, 2011 DOI: doi:10.1038/473253a Published online 18 May 2011. Abstract: "An accusation that referees are too demanding and editors too supine demands a response. Authors, editors and referees all have lessons to learn."
  • Peer Review in Academic Promotion and Publishing: Its Meaning, Locus, and Future (PDF) A Project Report and its Associated Recommendations, Proceedings from a Meeting, and Background Papers. Future of Scholarly Communication, University of California Berkeley, Centers for Studies in Higher Education. March 2011.
  • Retraction Watch - Launched in August 2010, this retraction blog is written by 2 medical reporters. When covering a retraction, they aim to address: how much time goes by before writing the retraction; what action requires a retraction; how much of a public announcement, if any, is made; does a journal with a low rate of retractions have a better peer review and editing process, or is it just not reporting the mistakes. They hope this will form the basis of larger discussions of the obligations of journals. Both writers have experience covering science and medicine for the consumer as well as trade press and seem to come across these issues often. While any particular Retraction Watch post will only carry one of their bylines, they will both contribute to all posts. See Retraction Watch FAQ.