Who are the 100 largest scientific publishers by journal count? A webscraping approach

Journal of Documentation

ISSN : 0022-0418

Article publication date: 21 September 2022

Issue publication date: 19 December 2022

How to obtain a list of the 100 largest scientific publishers sorted by journal count? Existing databases are unhelpful as each of them inhere biased omissions and data quality flaws. This paper tries to fill this gap with an alternative approach.

Design/methodology/approach

The content coverages of Scopus, Publons, DOAJ and SherpaRomeo were first used to extract a preliminary list of publishers that supposedly possess at least 15 journals. Second, the publishers' websites were scraped to fetch their portfolios and, thus, their “true” journal counts.

The outcome is a list of the 100 largest publishers comprising 28.060 scholarly journals, with the largest publishing 3.763 journals, and the smallest carrying 76 titles. The usual “oligopoly” of major publishing companies leads the list, but it also contains 17 university presses from the Global South, and, surprisingly, 30 predatory publishers that together publish 4.517 journals.

Research limitations/implications

Additional data sources could be used to mitigate remaining biases; it is difficult to disambiguate publisher names and their imprints; and the dataset carries a non-uniform distribution, thus risking the omission of data points in the lower range.

Practical implications

The dataset can serve as a useful basis for comprehensive meta-scientific surveys on the publisher-level.

Originality/value

The catalogue can be deemed more inclusive and diverse than other ones because many of the publishers would have been overlooked if one had drawn from merely one or two sources. The list is freely accessible and invites regular updates. The approach used here (webscraping) has seldomly been used in meta-scientific surveys.

  • Bibliographic systems
  • Data collection
  • University presses
  • Online databases
  • Journal publishers
  • Predatory publishers

Nishikawa-Pacher, A. (2022), "Who are the 100 largest scientific publishers by journal count? A webscraping approach", Journal of Documentation , Vol. 78 No. 7, pp. 450-463. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2022-0083

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Andreas Nishikawa-Pacher

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

There is no complete and freely accessible catalogue of all scientific publishers and their journals. Since there may be tens of thousands of active publishers, a project that uses a sample of journals to assess meta-scientific trends could be content with analyzing only the largest publishers. This superlative can be defined by the yearly volume of paper outputs, by the annual profit margin, by the size of the publishing company, by the reputation among the academic community, or by the number of journals published. The present paper is interested in the latter; for, while publishers with high journal counts are believed to amount only to a tiny share of the scientific publication ecosystem, they are nevertheless assumed to process the vast majority of the scholarly output ( Pollock, 2022 , based on data from OpenAlex , cf. Priem et al. , 2022 ). But how would one proceed to identify the, say, hundred largest academic publishers by their journal counts?

list of publishers of research paper

An authoritative list of the largest academic publishers, however, could be helpful in many ways. It would aid in achieving robust analyses regarding various aspects of scholarly publishing, such as on the implementation of research ethics policies ( Gardner et al. , 2022 ); on the prices of Article Processing Charges, or APCs ( Asai, 2020 ; Schönfelder, 2019 ); on peer review practices ( Besançon et al. , 2020 ; Hamilton et al. , 2020 ; Spezi et al. , 2018 ); on journals' social media presence ( Ortega, 2017 ; Zheng et al. , 2019 ); on their profit-orientation ( Beverungen et al. , 2012 ); on their open access and pre-print policies ( Laakso, 2014 ; Laakso et al. , 2011 ); on “editormetrics” ( Mendonça et al. , 2018 ; Pacher et al. , 2021 ); on community engagement through paper awards ( Lincoln et al. , 2012 ) or through podcasts ( Quintana and Heathers, 2021 ); on data-sharing policies ( Holt et al. , 2021 ); on their efforts in fostering diversity ( Metz et al. , 2016 ) or in supporting early career researchers ( O'Brien et al. , 2019 ); on their rate of ORCID adoption (cf. Porter, 2022 ); and so forth.

But without a near-complete catalogue of publishers and journals, any researcher risks omissions. An analyst who usually covers STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines may overlook, for example, the publisher Philosophy Documentation Center which possesses 249 journals; a social scientist may not know of the World Scientific despite its portfolio size of 204 journals; and a Western scientist may easily miss the Chinese company KeAi (with 130 journals) or the Indonesian press of Universitas Gadjah Mada (with 123 journals).

To fill this gap, a webscraping approach could aid in generating a list of major academic publishers as well as their journals. Due to coverage biases inherent to every platform, this approach should webscrape not just a single, but rather multiple research-related sources. The underlying rationale thus resembles a “Swiss cheese model”, where a given layer (or platform) has various holes (or flaws and omissions), but if multiple layers are stacked together side by side, losses can be prevented since the holes (or flaws and omissions) differ in their position. Accordingly, the project presented here first fetches data from four large research-related platforms to obtain a list of publishers that are supposed to be mid-sized or large according to each platform respectively. As a second step, it accesses each of these publishers' websites to scrape their journal count, so as to filter out only the largest publishers among the collected sample.

The aim is thus to generate a catalogue of major academic publishers and their scholarly journals, a list that is supposed to be more comprehensive, accessible and inclusive than any of the existing ones – while still being focused only on publishers with voluminous portfolios (to reduce the data-collection burden). Moreover, the list should not merely offer a snapshot of a specific moment but be adaptable over time; this possibility of always having the data up-to-date is guaranteed by a public sharing of the codes so as to enable extensions and reiterations of the webscraping process.

The following describes the methodical approach in greater detail. The chapter afterwards presents the results of the top 100 academic publishers, sorted by the number of serial titles they publish, with interesting findings regarding the relatively high shares of Global South university presses on the one hand, and of allegedly predatory publishers on the other hand. The discussion section then outlines various limitations encountered during the research process, including issues of data quality due to the non-uniform data distribution, or the difficulty of disambiguating imprints. The paper concludes with a possible guidance on how the limitations nevertheless point towards future research paths so as to reach the wider goal of a complete overview of academic publishers and their scholarly journals that could serve as a starting point for broad meta-scientific investigations.

To generate a comprehensive list of academic publishers and their scholarly journals, two separate methodical steps were necessary. The first one comprised data collection on the publisher -level. Based on the preliminary results of that first step, the second one proceeded with gathering journal -level data, or at least the respective journal count. The following will describe the respective approach in sequence.

The data and the codes are available in a Zenodo repository at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7081147 under a Creative Commons-license (CC0).

Publisher-level data

Data sample and data collection.

One single data source seems insufficient when one seeks to attain a complete overview over the landscape of scholarly publications; for each source inheres its own biases and indexing criteria. Instead, one should draw from multiple platforms. While heterogenous in character and scope, they may, taken together, provide a more complete menu of publishers than if one merely used a single database.

The present project thus uses four data samples, each of which comprises not only a large list of academic publishers, but also (at least implicitly) the number of journals assigned to them.

The first one is Scopus , a large-scale database of scientific publications that provides an openly available source title list. Using their source list from October 2020 comprising 40.804 journals in total, the names of the publishers were extracted and their frequency (i.e. journal count) counted.

The second data sample, Publons , is a platform designed to document and verify peer reviews. It allows anyone to register a referee report conducted for any journal from any publisher ( Van Noorden, 2014 ). It thus follows a “bottom-up” approach which potentially covers even publishers that tend to be invisibilized in other indexing services. Using webscraping with R 's rvest library ( Wickham and RStudio, 2020 ), this project accessed Publons ' directory of publishers ( “All publishers”, n.d. ).

The third source is DOAJ , a directory of open access journals aiming at a global coverage of scholarly publishers and journals that adhere to standards of open access publishing. To fetch the relevant information, this project used the JSON-formatted journal metadata from DOAJ 's public data dump.

The final source of publishers used was Sherpa Romeo , a website which aggregates open access archiving policies from a growing number of more than 4.000 publishers. Their publisher list was scraped with R .

All these data were collected on 11. December 2020.

Data analysis

Having collected four datasets comprising publisher names and their number of journals according to each respective platform, this project joined these datasets together, harmonized some publisher names, and extracted the highest journal count per publisher. For example, if the publisher Copernicus Publications had 41 journals in Scopus , 47 in Publons , 40 in DOAJ , and 71 in Sherpa Romeo , that publisher was assigned the maximum journal count of 71. This count was only a preliminary one; the real number of journals would be verified later (as will be outlined below).

After garnering these data, the list was sorted by the preliminary number of journals in descending order. In total, there were 24.722 distinct publisher names. As resource constraints made it impossible to look at each of the publisher distinctly and thoroughly, a threshold was chosen that would leave one with a still-manageable sample while ensuring that the result would still be a plausible list of the largest publishers. With that threshold, only publishers that supposedly carried at least 15 titles according to any of the four data sources were kept – for example, since Copernicus Publications had been assigned the preliminary count of 71 journals (above the threshold of 15), it remained in the sample for further validation of its journal count. The threshold was chosen because it seemed low enough to ensure that all publishers that would make it into the final list would pass that threshold, even if the four data sources did not have a complete portfolio of these publishers; in this sense, the lower the threshold, the more complete will be the final data. However, the threshold should not be too low – it should rather be high enough to yield a sample that would be manageable for a manual verification of each publisher's journal count. In other words, as one lowers the threshold, the sample size increases, and thereby the likelihood of detecting yet another large publisher that will make it into the final list becomes greater. However, larger sample sizes require more resources, and there may be “a point where an effect [of increasing the sample size] becomes so minuscule that it is meaningless in a practical sense” ( Alba-Fernández et al. , 2020 , p. 14). The threshold of 15 journals may have allowed for sufficient data to create a reliable top 100 list (cf. the superficial assessment in the Results section below).

Preliminary publisher-level results

A preliminary result extracted 568 distinct publisher names that supposedly published at least 15 journals, according to any of the four data sources DOAJ, Publons, Scopus or Sherpa Romeo.

This preliminary list was then cleaned manually, as there were obvious data quality issues such as inflated numbers and unharmonized publisher names. The manual refinement also got rid of duplications, discontinued presses and non-publishers (e.g. Egyptian Knowledge Bank or SciELO ), resulting in a preliminary list of 414 academic publishers.

Journal-level data

Based on the preliminary list that resulted from the publisher-level data collection, the next step was to visit each listed publisher's website to find the respective portfolio of journals. In order to webscrape each publisher's respective journal list, the so-called CSS [2] selectors that harbour the names and the links of the journals were required. The manual collection of these CSS selectors for each of the 414 publishers was undertaken in January 2021 (and updated in mid-2022). The respective publisher websites were then scraped between March and July 2022, fetching data about journal names and journal counts [3] , finally filtering the 100 largest publishers according to these webscraped journal counts.

Figure 2 offers a diagram of the methodical approach taken.

The outcome of the data-collection resulted in a catalogue of the 100 largest academic publishers (comprising 28.060 serial titles) based on journal counts. Summary statistics are visible in Table 1 .

Ordered by journal counts, the top ones resemble the prominent “oligopoly” of academic publishing ( Larivière et al. , 2015 ) – Springer, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Wiley, and SAGE lead the list. Many of the middle-ranging ones, however, may offer surprisingly unknown or only faintly familiar names to researchers whose usual range is confined to just a single, specific discipline or to a single, specific region.

Of the 100 largest publishers, 17 are university-based presses headquartered in research institutions at the Global South (perhaps surprisingly; cf. Collyer, 2018 ). Eight of them are from Latin America (cf. Delgado-Troncoso and Fischman, 2014 ), while seven are based in Indonesia (cf. Irawan et al. , 2021 ; Wiryawan, 2014 ) – including the largest among them, the Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia that publishes 177 journals. One press from Iran and Malaysia each round up this subset of Global South university presses.

Another possibly surprising result is that the list contains a large share of so-called predatory publishers – namely, 30 out of 100 [4] . Most of the allegedly predatory publishers in the present list even publish more than one hundred titles; the largest one, OMICS , even has 705 journals in its portfolio, propelling it into the sixth place of the overall ranking. In total, they publish 4.517 outlets, or more than 16% of all journals covered by the 100 publishers – roughly every sixth journal of a major publisher is a predatory one. Admittedly, the attribute of predatoriness is a contested one, but in its core, the term denotes organizations that publish seemingly scientific articles against monetary charges without offering an authentic peer-review, while at the same time conducting dishonest practices such as deceiving the public of wrong impact factors, or listing researchers as editorial board members without their knowledge ( Cobey et al. , 2018 , p. 8). Such (allegedly) predatory publishers are usually left out by curated databases for ethical reasons, but for comprehensive meta-scientific surveys, it may be useful to not exclude them.

The top 100, sorted by journal count, is visible in Table 2 .

Some of the publishers listed are not indexed in all four data sample platforms, meaning that they would have been overlooked if this project merely drew from one or two sources. This is especially the case for the so-called predatory publishers; for instance, OMICS (with 705 titles) was missing at both DOAJ and Sherpa Romeo ; or, if one only used DOAJ and Scopus as relevant sources, then one would have omitted Gavin Publishers (with 168 journals) and Scientific and Academic Publishing (comprising 149 titles); and if one drew from just Publons and Scopus , then Open Access Pub (boasting 198 journals in its portfolio) would not have been found.

However, non-predatory publishers like university presses would have suffered a similar fate; for example, the press of Universitas Negeri Semarang which has 120 journals would not have been found if one merely collected publishers that had any reviews verified at Publons .

The “Swiss cheese model” approach of using various layers, or multiple research-related platforms for data-collection, thus helped to prevent potential data losses.

This is not to claim that the result is exhaustive and accurate, as the Discussion section will consider below. There still may be omissions, especially in the lower ranks of the list – the distribution is so non-uniform that the upper “cloud” of the ranking is likely accurate, while the “tail” is rather noisy. To give a rough impression of how accurate the ranking is, at least with regards to the four data sources used here, one can slice the original sample (the unharmonized one comprising the 414 publishers that had at least 15 journals according to either of our four data sources) into ten deciles, with the tenth decile showing the largest publishers and the first decile the smallest ones. Each decile contains 41 or 42 publisher names. In the tenth decile, the vast majority of the publishers (87.8%) made it into the final top 100 list; in the ninth decile, that share fell to roughly a half (48.8%). The eigth decile was down to less than a fourth (22.0%). In general, there is a clear downward trend (with a few exceptions) until the first decile, which had just 2.4% of its publishers in the final list (see Table 3 ). With each decile, the median decline in percentage points was −7.1%, so that one could except a further quantile to have an even lower probability that any of the listed publishers there would make it into the final list. While such statistical numbers do not guarantee that the final top 100 list is accurate, they do provide confidence that the probability of errors is not overly high, at least given the four data sources here; and even if one demanded higher precision, the paper's purpose was primarily to demonstrate the utility of a method (webscraping) rather than to execute it until perfection.

Webscraping, first, multiple databases of scientific indexing services, and second, the publishers' websites themselves offers an effective way to obtain a comprehensive overview of the landscape of academic publishing, at least when it comes to large publishers in terms of the number of journals in their portfolio. The present project utilized data from Scopus , Publons , DOAJ and Sherpa Romeo to automatically enumerate a list of major academic publishers and their scholarly journals as complete as possible. It first gathered a list of publishers that allegedly published at least 15 journals, before validating each publisher's journal count that resulted in a catalogue of the 100 largest academic publishers comprising 28.060 scholarly periodicals.

Many of these publishers, especially in the mid- and smaller range, would have been omitted if one had drawn only from a subset of the databases. This is especially pertinent to those that are either located in the Global South ( Collyer, 2018 ; Jimenez et al. , in press , pp. 4–5; Okune et al. , 2018 ; Teixeira da Silva et al. , 2019 ) or that publish articles in languages other than English (“LOTE”) ( Ren and Rousseau, 2002 ; Vera-Baceta et al. , 2019 ). They are not always indexed in the major scientific databases, and some of them do not issue DOIs for various reasons, making it easy to overlook them in conventional searches. Examples include the Iranian press of the University of Tehran (with 115 journals), the Chinese one of KeAi (130 journals), the major Indonesian players like the presses of Universitas Gadjah Mada (123 journals), Universitas Negeri Semarang (120 journals) and Universitas Diponegoro (87 journals), Eastern European publishers like the Editura Academiei Romane (76 journals), or Latin American entities belonging to the Universidade de Brasília (86 journals) or to the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (127 journals). The fact that the present project did not omit them indicates that the catalogue gathered here might be less susceptible to systemically biased omissions than if one had used merely one or two sources.

The list generated by this project thus offers a gateway towards large-scale analyses regarding macro-scale engagements, actions and policies of publishers and journals. May they relate to open access aspects, to the conduct of peer review, to article processing charges, to the availability of metadata or to editorial boards – whatever the use case, a webscraping approach that gathers meta-scientific information seems to offer a viable path for alternative and inclusive samples. And it is on the basis of these samples that one can thoroughly investigate existing research cultures in all their diversity.

In addition, as all the present paper's codes and data are shared publicly, they can find extension so as to cover further data sources, and they me be executed repeatedly to update the catalogue over time.

However, there are various weaknesses and limitations to be discussed. First and foremost, while the upper “cloud” of the dataset may accurately depict the league of the largest academic publishers, the mid- and lower ranges (or “tail”) may be more susceptible to noisy errors and omissions. In other words, the dataset is most likely an imbalanced one due to the non-uniform distribution of the underlying data ( Kotsiantis et al. , 2006 ). That is, there is a high probability of the largest publishers to occur in any of the four samples, but the smaller the publisher, the less likely it is that one identifies them through webscraping the four sources (a problem of undersampling). After all, the use of multiple platforms does not dispense with the necessity to be aware of inherent biases; it is possible that there are still enough publishers that have not made it into any of the four data samples used for this project. Such biases could be mitigated by drawing from more and more sources. CORE ( Makhija et al. , 2018 ), JSTOR ( Schonfeld, 2012 ) , BASE ( Pieper and Summann, 2006 ) , OpenAIRE Explore ( Alexiou et al. , 2016 ), the Directory of Free Arab Journals (DFAJ) (2021), SciELO ( Packer, 2009 ), the Iranian Scientific Information Database (SID.ir), or African Journals OnLine (AJOL) may serve as likely candidates, though one would first need to ensure that one can indeed obtain structured data from them.

Other data difficulties remain. The issue of disambiguating publisher names and their imprints is one that may lead to arbitrary definitions (e.g. differentiating Springer from Springer Nature and BioMedCentral , but not from Demos Medical Publishing , even though they all share the same parent companies). A related problem arises when the samples used aggregators or information retrieval platforms (such as SciELO or the Egyptian Knowledge Base ) erroneously as publishers. This is one reason why CrossRef 's member list or Scilit could not be used as data sources for the present project. A further limitation lies in the fact that some of the journals listed in the publisher's online catalogues may be discontinued or inactive ( Cortegiani et al. , 2020 ). The next step should thus necessarily entail a closer and possibly manual assessment of each publisher's precise journal count.

Once these limitations are addressed, the webscraping approach outlined here may fill a gap in the meta-scientific literature, especially with regards to exhaustive surveys of university presses, scholarly publishers and scientific journals. Without a reliably and freely available comprehensive list, scientometric examinations would risk an incomplete coverage of the diverse landscape of academic publishing, leading to a structural invisibilisation of underrepresented journals or an underestimation of the extent to which predatory publishers have occupied the scientific ecosystem.

With additional data refinements and even more encompassing, alternative sources, the list may finally attain a satisfying degree of saturation and accuracy. Once one can be certain that there is a complete and inclusive catalogue of academic publishers and scholarly journals from all around the world without any blind spots, this cannot but benefit the whole science of science.

list of publishers of research paper

Screenshot of Ulrichsweb 's filter option regarding publishers, sorted by count, after the search query Status:(“Active”) Serial Type:(“Journal”) Content Type:(“Academic / Scholarly”) on 14 May 2021

list of publishers of research paper

The methodical approach that led to the final list of the 100 largest academic publishers

Descriptive data about the number of journals (grouped by publisher) in the one hundred largest publishers in the webscraped dataset

The final list of the 100 largest academic publishers ordered by their journal counts

How many publishers in the original sample made it into the final top 100 list?

Note(s): The data are based on the preliminary list of 414 publishers; accordingly, the journal counts refer not necessarily to the ‘true’ count, but to the maximum value according to any of the four data sources (DOAJ, Publons, Romeo Sherpa, or Scopus)

CrossRef itself does not have data about whether and which of their members are (non-)publishers; private communication from 26 April 2021 (internally saved at CrossRef as request #364948).

Cascading Style Sheets, a computer language used for layouting and structuring websites (usually in conjunction with HTML, or Hypertext Markup Language).

Due to technical errors (e.g. outdated security certificates of the respective host server) or due to improperly structured websites, some journal counts had to be collected manually.

Despite controversies ( Koerber et al ., 2020 ), this paper defines predatoriness largely by the inclusion of the respective publisher in the updated version of Beall's list as of December 2021 ( “Beall's List of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers”, 2021 ). There are two exceptions – Frontiers is not marked as predatory in the present paper because its inclusion into Beall's List has always remained highly contested ( Kendall, 2021 , p. 382); but Annex Publishers is marked as predatory even though it was not in Beall's List for the following reasons: it refers to a bogus version of the Impact Factor (“CiteFactor”) as a reference, promises rapid peer reviews (21 days), a publication within 24 h after acceptance, a high visibility due to its inclusion on Google Scholar (which is trivial); furthermore, it is not indexed in the DOAJ and demands quite high Article Processing Charges (between USD 1.200 and USD 3.600, as of July 2022).

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Acknowledgements

Corrigendum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the article: Nishikawa-Pacher, A. (2022), “Who are the 100 largest scientific publishers by journal count? A webscraping approach”, Journal of Documentation , Vol. 78 No. 7, pp. 450-463. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2022-0083 mistakenly labelled IOS Press as a predatory publisher in Table 2. Amendments have been made to Table 2 and throughout the text to correct this issue. The authors sincerely apologise to IOS Press and the readers for any inconvenience caused.

A preprint version of this paper appeared as “Who are the 100 Largest Scientific Publishers by Journal Count? A Webscraping Approach” and has been posted on the SocArXiv repository.

Funding: The author acknowledges TU Wien Bibliothek for financial support through its Open Access Funding Programme.

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Collection  12 March 2023

Journal Top 100 - 2022

This collection highlights our most downloaded* research papers published in 2022. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an international community.

You can also check out the Top 100 across various subject areas here .

*Data obtained from SN Insights, which is based on Digital Science’s Dimensions.

image of abstract blue network

mRNA vaccine-induced antibodies more effective than natural immunity in neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 and its high affinity variants

  • Dominic Esposito

list of publishers of research paper

Cats learn the names of their friend cats in their daily lives

  • Saho Takagi
  • Atsuko Saito
  • Hika Kuroshima

list of publishers of research paper

Metformin administration is associated with enhanced response to transarterial chemoembolization for hepatocellular carcinoma in type 2 diabetes patients

  • Woo Jin Jung
  • Sangmi Jang
  • Jin-Wook Kim

list of publishers of research paper

The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background

  • Bruno Sauce
  • Magnus Liebherr
  • Torkel Klingberg

list of publishers of research paper

Life tables of annual life expectancy and mortality for companion dogs in the United Kingdom

  • Kendy Tzu-yun Teng
  • Dave C. Brodbelt
  • Dan G. O’Neill

list of publishers of research paper

Bioarchaeological and palaeogenomic portrait of two Pompeians that died during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD

  • Gabriele Scorrano
  • Serena Viva
  • Fabio Macciardi

list of publishers of research paper

Reading on a smartphone affects sigh generation, brain activity, and comprehension

  • Motoyasu Honma
  • Yuri Masaoka
  • Masahiko Izumizaki

list of publishers of research paper

Principal Component Analyses (PCA)-based findings in population genetic studies are highly biased and must be reevaluated

  • Eran Elhaik

list of publishers of research paper

The determinants of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality across countries

  • Dianna Chang
  • Kelvin Jui Keng Tan

list of publishers of research paper

Birdsongs alleviate anxiety and paranoia in healthy participants

  • J. Sundermann

list of publishers of research paper

Identification of ADS024, a newly characterized strain of Bacillus velezensis with direct Clostridiodes difficile killing and toxin degradation bio-activities

  • Michelle M. O’Donnell
  • James W. Hegarty
  • Laurent Chesnel

list of publishers of research paper

Multiple sclerosis genetic and non-genetic factors interact through the transient transcriptome

  • Renato Umeton
  • Gianmarco Bellucci
  • Giovanni Ristori

list of publishers of research paper

The effect of metformin on the survival of colorectal cancer patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

  • Zeinab Tarhini
  • Kamelia Manceur
  • Niki Christou

list of publishers of research paper

Chemical characterisation of the vapour emitted by an e-cigarette using a ceramic wick-based technology

  • M. Isabel Pinto

list of publishers of research paper

Large-magnitude (VEI ≥ 7) ‘wet’ explosive silicic eruption preserved a Lower Miocene habitat at the Ipolytarnóc Fossil Site, North Hungary

  • Dávid Karátson
  • Imre Szarvas

list of publishers of research paper

Far-UVC (222 nm) efficiently inactivates an airborne pathogen in a room-sized chamber

  • Waseem Hiwar
  • Kenneth Wood

list of publishers of research paper

Low dose aspirin associated with greater bone mineral density in older adults

  • Hongzhan Liu
  • Xungang Xiao

list of publishers of research paper

First direct evidence of adult European eels migrating to their breeding place in the Sargasso Sea

  • Rosalind M. Wright
  • Adam T. Piper
  • David Righton

list of publishers of research paper

Infections with the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant exhibit fourfold increased viral loads in the upper airways compared to Alpha or non-variants of concern

  • Christian J. H. von Wintersdorff
  • Jozef Dingemans
  • Paul H. M. Savelkoul

list of publishers of research paper

Inappropriate sinus tachycardia in post-COVID-19 syndrome

  • Júlia Aranyó
  • Victor Bazan
  • Roger Villuendas

list of publishers of research paper

The microstructure and the origin of the Venus from Willendorf

  • Gerhard W. Weber
  • Alexander Lukeneder

list of publishers of research paper

COVID-19 reinfections among naturally infected and vaccinated individuals

  • Sezanur Rahman
  • M. Mahfuzur Rahman
  • Mustafizur Rahman

list of publishers of research paper

Lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic strongly impacted the circulation of respiratory pathogens in Southern China

  • Heping Wang
  • Yuejie Zheng
  • Wenjian Wang

list of publishers of research paper

Alzheimer’s disease large-scale gene expression portrait identifies exercise as the top theoretical treatment

  • Mason A. Hill
  • Stephen C. Gammie

list of publishers of research paper

COVID-19 symptoms are reduced by targeted hydration of the nose, larynx and trachea

  • Carolin Elizabeth George
  • Gerhard Scheuch
  • David A. Edwards

list of publishers of research paper

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induces cognitive deficit and anxiety-like behavior in mouse via non-cell autonomous hippocampal neuronal death

  • Junyoung Oh
  • Woo-Hyun Cho
  • Sung Joong Lee

list of publishers of research paper

Abdominal pain patterns during COVID-19: an observational study

  • Alexandre Balaphas
  • Kyriaki Gkoufa
  • Christian Toso

list of publishers of research paper

Detection of human pathogenic bacteria in rectal DNA samples from Zalophus californianus in the Gulf of California, Mexico

  • Francesco Cicala
  • David Ramírez-Delgado
  • Alexei F. Licea-Navarro

list of publishers of research paper

Industrialised fishing nations largely contribute to floating plastic pollution in the North Pacific subtropical gyre

  • Laurent Lebreton
  • Sarah-Jeanne Royer
  • Matthias Egger

list of publishers of research paper

Hypertension and diabetes including their earlier stage are associated with increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest

  • Seung Young Roh
  • Young-Hoon Kim

list of publishers of research paper

Utility of an artificial intelligence system for classification of esophageal lesions when simulating its clinical use

  • Ayaka Tajiri
  • Ryu Ishihara
  • Tomohiro Tada

list of publishers of research paper

Prevalence, age of decision, and interpersonal warmth judgements of childfree adults

  • Zachary P. Neal
  • Jennifer Watling Neal

list of publishers of research paper

Acute and protracted abstinence from methamphetamine bidirectionally changes intrinsic excitability of indirect pathway spiny projection neurons in the dorsomedial striatum

  • Sanghoon Choi
  • Steven M. Graves

list of publishers of research paper

Indeterminacy of cannabis impairment and ∆ 9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (∆ 9 -THC) levels in blood and breath

  • Gregory T. Wurz
  • Michael W. DeGregorio

list of publishers of research paper

High rates of plasmid cotransformation in E. coli overturn the clonality myth and reveal colony development

  • Delia Tomoiaga
  • Jaclyn Bubnell
  • Paul Feinstein

list of publishers of research paper

Metformin sensitizes leukemic cells to cytotoxic lymphocytes by increasing expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1)

  • Nerea Allende-Vega
  • Joaquin Marco Brualla
  • Martin Villalba

list of publishers of research paper

Incorporation of machine learning and deep neural network approaches into a remote sensing-integrated crop model for the simulation of rice growth

  • Seungtaek Jeong
  • Jong-min Yeom

list of publishers of research paper

Perceiving societal pressure to be happy is linked to poor well-being, especially in happy nations

  • Egon Dejonckheere
  • Joshua J. Rhee
  • Brock Bastian

list of publishers of research paper

The earliest Pleistocene record of a large-bodied hominin from the Levant supports two out-of-Africa dispersal events

  • Alon Barash
  • Miriam Belmaker

list of publishers of research paper

Generation mechanism and prediction of an observed extreme rogue wave

  • Johannes Gemmrich

list of publishers of research paper

Fitness tracking reveals task-specific associations between memory, mental health, and physical activity

  • Jeremy R. Manning
  • Gina M. Notaro
  • Paxton C. Fitzpatrick

Domestic dogs ( Canis familiaris ) grieve over the loss of a conspecific

  • Stefania Uccheddu
  • Lucia Ronconi
  • Federica Pirrone

list of publishers of research paper

Human transgenerational observations of regular smoking before puberty on fat mass in grandchildren and great-grandchildren

  • Jean Golding
  • Steve Gregory
  • Matthew Suderman

list of publishers of research paper

Chlamydia pneumoniae can infect the central nervous system via the olfactory and trigeminal nerves and contributes to Alzheimer’s disease risk

  • Jenny A. K. Ekberg

list of publishers of research paper

Oxycodone/naloxone versus tapentadol in real-world chronic non-cancer pain management: an observational and pharmacogenetic study

  • Jordi Barrachina
  • Cesar Margarit
  • Ana M. Peiró

Cooking methods are associated with inflammatory factors, renal function, and other hormones and nutritional biomarkers in older adults

  • Montserrat Rodríguez-Ayala
  • José Ramón Banegas
  • Pilar Guallar-Castillón

list of publishers of research paper

Classification of pig calls produced from birth to slaughter according to their emotional valence and context of production

  • Elodie F. Briefer
  • Ciara C.-R. Sypherd
  • Céline Tallet

list of publishers of research paper

Higher emotional awareness is associated with greater domain-general reflective tendencies

  • Michelle Persich
  • William D. S. Killgore

list of publishers of research paper

A large Megaraptoridae (Theropoda: Coelurosauria) from Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Patagonia, Argentina

  • Alexis M. Aranciaga Rolando
  • Matias J. Motta
  • Fernando E. Novas

list of publishers of research paper

Long COVID occurrence in COVID-19 survivors

  • Aya Sugiyama
  • Junko Tanaka

list of publishers of research paper

Water activated disposable paper battery

  • Alexandre Poulin
  • Xavier Aeby
  • Gustav Nyström

list of publishers of research paper

Intestinal preservation in a birdlike dinosaur supports conservatism in digestive canal evolution among theropods

  • Yichuan Liu

list of publishers of research paper

Antiviral effect of cetylpyridinium chloride in mouthwash on SARS-CoV-2

  • Hirofumi Sawa

list of publishers of research paper

Evidence of an oceanic impact and megatsunami sedimentation in Chryse Planitia, Mars

  • J. Alexis P. Rodriguez
  • Darrel K. Robertson
  • Mario Zarroca

list of publishers of research paper

Curcumin and metformin synergistically modulate peripheral and central immune mechanisms of pain

  • Peththa Wadu Dasuni Wasana
  • Pasarapa Towiwat

list of publishers of research paper

The first occurrence of an avian-style respiratory infection in a non-avian dinosaur

  • D. Cary Woodruff
  • Ewan D. S. Wolff
  • Lawrence M. Witmer

list of publishers of research paper

Optimal linear estimation models predict 1400–2900 years of overlap between Homo sapiens and Neandertals prior to their disappearance from France and northern Spain

  • Igor Djakovic
  • Alastair Key
  • Marie Soressi

list of publishers of research paper

The influence of time on the sensitivity of SARS-CoV-2 serological testing

  • Arturo Torres Ortiz
  • Fernanda Fenn Torrente
  • Louis Grandjean

list of publishers of research paper

Online misinformation is linked to early COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy and refusal

  • Francesco Pierri
  • Brea L. Perry
  • John Bryden

list of publishers of research paper

A distinct symptom pattern emerges for COVID-19 long-haul: a nationwide study

  • Melissa D. Pinto
  • Charles A. Downs
  • Natalie Lambert

list of publishers of research paper

SARS-CoV-2-reactive IFN-γ-producing CD4 + and CD8 + T cells in blood do not correlate with clinical severity in unvaccinated critically ill COVID-19 patients

  • Beatriz Olea
  • Eliseo Albert
  • David Navarro

list of publishers of research paper

Classification of 74 facial emoji’s emotional states on the valence-arousal axes

  • Gaku Kutsuzawa
  • Hiroyuki Umemura
  • Yoshiyuki Kobayashi

list of publishers of research paper

The emergence of a new sex-system (XX/XY 1 Y 2 ) suggests a species complex in the “monotypic” rodent Oecomys auyantepui (Rodentia, Sigmodontinae)

  • Willam Oliveira da Silva
  • Celina Coelho Rosa
  • Cleusa Yoshiko Nagamachi

list of publishers of research paper

Detection of COVID-19 using multimodal data from a wearable device: results from the first TemPredict Study

  • Ashley E. Mason
  • Frederick M. Hecht
  • Benjamin L. Smarr

list of publishers of research paper

Spinal degeneration is associated with lumbar multifidus morphology in secondary care patients with low back or leg pain

  • Jeffrey R. Cooley
  • Tue S. Jensen
  • Jeffrey J. Hebert

list of publishers of research paper

Phenomenology and content of the inhaled N , N -dimethyltryptamine ( N , N -DMT) experience

  • David Wyndham Lawrence
  • Robin Carhart-Harris
  • Christopher Timmermann

list of publishers of research paper

A gigantic bizarre marine turtle (Testudines: Chelonioidea) from the Middle Campanian (Late Cretaceous) of South-western Europe

  • Oscar Castillo-Visa
  • Àngel H. Luján
  • Albert Sellés

list of publishers of research paper

The first experience with fully endoscopic posterior cervical foraminotomy and discectomy for radiculopathy performed in Viet Duc University Hospital

  • Son Ngoc Dinh
  • Hung The Dinh

list of publishers of research paper

Mapping the “catscape” formed by a population of pet cats with outdoor access

  • Richard Bischof
  • Nina Rosita Hansen
  • Torbjørn Haugaasen

list of publishers of research paper

Investigation of humans individual differences as predictors of their animal interaction styles, focused on the domestic cat

  • Lauren R. Finka
  • Lucia Ripari
  • Marnie L. Brennan

list of publishers of research paper

Genesis of fecal floatation is causally linked to gut microbial colonization in mice

  • Syed Mohammed Musheer Aalam
  • Daphne Norma Crasta
  • Nagarajan Kannan

list of publishers of research paper

Young children’s screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 12 countries

  • Christina Bergmann
  • Nevena Dimitrova
  • Nivedita Mani

list of publishers of research paper

Cichlids and stingrays can add and subtract ‘one’ in the number space from one to five

  • V. Schluessel

list of publishers of research paper

Elevated estradiol levels in frozen embryo transfer have different effects on pregnancy outcomes depending on the stage of transferred embryos

  • Liming Ruan

list of publishers of research paper

Group VR experiences can produce ego attenuation and connectedness comparable to psychedelics

  • David R. Glowacki
  • Rhoslyn Roebuck Williams
  • Mike Chatziapostolou

list of publishers of research paper

New therizinosaurid dinosaur from the marine Osoushinai Formation (Upper Cretaceous, Japan) provides insight for function and evolution of therizinosaur claws

  • Yoshitsugu Kobayashi
  • Ryuji Takasaki
  • Yoshinori Hikida

list of publishers of research paper

Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals mental health benefits of birdlife

  • Ryan Hammoud
  • Stefania Tognin
  • Andrea Mechelli

list of publishers of research paper

Long-term outcomes of cataract surgery with toric intraocular lens implantation by the type of preoperative astigmatism

  • Tetsuro Oshika
  • Shinichiro Nakano
  • Tsutomu Kaneko

list of publishers of research paper

Forest fire detection system using wireless sensor networks and machine learning

  • Udaya Dampage
  • Lumini Bandaranayake
  • Bathiya Jayasanka

list of publishers of research paper

Misinformation of COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine hesitancy

  • Sun Kyong Lee
  • Juhyung Sun
  • Shane Connelly

list of publishers of research paper

Deep language algorithms predict semantic comprehension from brain activity

  • Charlotte Caucheteux
  • Alexandre Gramfort
  • Jean-Rémi King

list of publishers of research paper

Children with autism spectrum disorder show atypical electroencephalographic response to processing contextual incongruencies

  • Amparo V. Márquez-García
  • Vasily A. Vakorin
  • Sam M. Doesburg

list of publishers of research paper

A generalizable one health framework for the control of zoonotic diseases

  • Ria R. Ghai
  • Ryan M. Wallace
  • Casey Barton Behravesh

list of publishers of research paper

HS3ST2 expression induces the cell autonomous aggregation of tau

  • M. B. Huynh
  • N. Rebergue
  • D. Papy-Garcia

list of publishers of research paper

Exceptional warming over the Barents area

  • Ketil Isaksen
  • Øyvind Nordli
  • Tatiana Karandasheva

list of publishers of research paper

A new Early Cretaceous lizard in Myanmar amber with exceptionally preserved integument

  • Andrej Čerňanský
  • Edward L. Stanley
  • Susan E. Evans

list of publishers of research paper

Coffee consumption and diabetic retinopathy in adults with diabetes mellitus

  • Hak Jun Lee
  • Daniel Duck-Jin Hwang

list of publishers of research paper

Shifts in the foraging tactics of crocodiles following invasion by toxic prey

  • Abhilasha Aiyer
  • Richard Shine
  • Georgia Ward-Fear

list of publishers of research paper

Production of high loading insulin nanoparticles suitable for oral delivery by spray drying and freeze drying techniques

  • Alberto Baldelli
  • Anubhav Pratap-Singh

list of publishers of research paper

Cable news and COVID-19 vaccine uptake

  • Matteo Pinna
  • Christoph Goessmann

list of publishers of research paper

Estimating the time of last drinking from blood ethyl glucuronide and ethyl sulphate concentrations

  • Zhongyuan Guo

list of publishers of research paper

COVID-19 infections in infants

  • Małgorzata Sobolewska-Pilarczyk
  • Maria Pokorska-Śpiewak
  • Małgorzata Pawłowska

list of publishers of research paper

COVID-19 increases the risk for the onset of atrial fibrillation in hospitalized patients

  • Jakob Wollborn
  • Sergey Karamnov
  • Jochen D. Muehlschlegel

list of publishers of research paper

Childhood temperament and adulthood personality differentially predict life outcomes

  • Amanda J. Wright
  • Joshua J. Jackson

list of publishers of research paper

Antivirus applied to JAR malware detection based on runtime behaviors

  • Ricardo P. Pinheiro
  • Sidney M. L. Lima
  • Wellington P. dos Santos

list of publishers of research paper

Therapeutic enzyme engineering using a generative neural network

  • Andrew Giessel
  • Athanasios Dousis
  • Stuart Licht

list of publishers of research paper

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How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

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  • Published: 30 April 2020
  • Volume 36 , pages 909–913, ( 2021 )

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  • Clara Busse   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0178-1000 1 &
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Communicating research findings is an essential step in the research process. Often, peer-reviewed journals are the forum for such communication, yet many researchers are never taught how to write a publishable scientific paper. In this article, we explain the basic structure of a scientific paper and describe the information that should be included in each section. We also identify common pitfalls for each section and recommend strategies to avoid them. Further, we give advice about target journal selection and authorship. In the online resource 1 , we provide an example of a high-quality scientific paper, with annotations identifying the elements we describe in this article.

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Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Writing a scientific paper is an important component of the research process, yet researchers often receive little formal training in scientific writing. This is especially true in low-resource settings. In this article, we explain why choosing a target journal is important, give advice about authorship, provide a basic structure for writing each section of a scientific paper, and describe common pitfalls and recommendations for each section. In the online resource 1 , we also include an annotated journal article that identifies the key elements and writing approaches that we detail here. Before you begin your research, make sure you have ethical clearance from all relevant ethical review boards.

Select a Target Journal Early in the Writing Process

We recommend that you select a “target journal” early in the writing process; a “target journal” is the journal to which you plan to submit your paper. Each journal has a set of core readers and you should tailor your writing to this readership. For example, if you plan to submit a manuscript about vaping during pregnancy to a pregnancy-focused journal, you will need to explain what vaping is because readers of this journal may not have a background in this topic. However, if you were to submit that same article to a tobacco journal, you would not need to provide as much background information about vaping.

Information about a journal’s core readership can be found on its website, usually in a section called “About this journal” or something similar. For example, the Journal of Cancer Education presents such information on the “Aims and Scope” page of its website, which can be found here: https://www.springer.com/journal/13187/aims-and-scope .

Peer reviewer guidelines from your target journal are an additional resource that can help you tailor your writing to the journal and provide additional advice about crafting an effective article [ 1 ]. These are not always available, but it is worth a quick web search to find out.

Identify Author Roles Early in the Process

Early in the writing process, identify authors, determine the order of authors, and discuss the responsibilities of each author. Standard author responsibilities have been identified by The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) [ 2 ]. To set clear expectations about each team member’s responsibilities and prevent errors in communication, we also suggest outlining more detailed roles, such as who will draft each section of the manuscript, write the abstract, submit the paper electronically, serve as corresponding author, and write the cover letter. It is best to formalize this agreement in writing after discussing it, circulating the document to the author team for approval. We suggest creating a title page on which all authors are listed in the agreed-upon order. It may be necessary to adjust authorship roles and order during the development of the paper. If a new author order is agreed upon, be sure to update the title page in the manuscript draft.

In the case where multiple papers will result from a single study, authors should discuss who will author each paper. Additionally, authors should agree on a deadline for each paper and the lead author should take responsibility for producing an initial draft by this deadline.

Structure of the Introduction Section

The introduction section should be approximately three to five paragraphs in length. Look at examples from your target journal to decide the appropriate length. This section should include the elements shown in Fig.  1 . Begin with a general context, narrowing to the specific focus of the paper. Include five main elements: why your research is important, what is already known about the topic, the “gap” or what is not yet known about the topic, why it is important to learn the new information that your research adds, and the specific research aim(s) that your paper addresses. Your research aim should address the gap you identified. Be sure to add enough background information to enable readers to understand your study. Table 1 provides common introduction section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

figure 1

The main elements of the introduction section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Methods Section

The purpose of the methods section is twofold: to explain how the study was done in enough detail to enable its replication and to provide enough contextual detail to enable readers to understand and interpret the results. In general, the essential elements of a methods section are the following: a description of the setting and participants, the study design and timing, the recruitment and sampling, the data collection process, the dataset, the dependent and independent variables, the covariates, the analytic approach for each research objective, and the ethical approval. The hallmark of an exemplary methods section is the justification of why each method was used. Table 2 provides common methods section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Results Section

The focus of the results section should be associations, or lack thereof, rather than statistical tests. Two considerations should guide your writing here. First, the results should present answers to each part of the research aim. Second, return to the methods section to ensure that the analysis and variables for each result have been explained.

Begin the results section by describing the number of participants in the final sample and details such as the number who were approached to participate, the proportion who were eligible and who enrolled, and the number of participants who dropped out. The next part of the results should describe the participant characteristics. After that, you may organize your results by the aim or by putting the most exciting results first. Do not forget to report your non-significant associations. These are still findings.

Tables and figures capture the reader’s attention and efficiently communicate your main findings [ 3 ]. Each table and figure should have a clear message and should complement, rather than repeat, the text. Tables and figures should communicate all salient details necessary for a reader to understand the findings without consulting the text. Include information on comparisons and tests, as well as information about the sample and timing of the study in the title, legend, or in a footnote. Note that figures are often more visually interesting than tables, so if it is feasible to make a figure, make a figure. To avoid confusing the reader, either avoid abbreviations in tables and figures, or define them in a footnote. Note that there should not be citations in the results section and you should not interpret results here. Table 3 provides common results section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Discussion Section

Opposite the introduction section, the discussion should take the form of a right-side-up triangle beginning with interpretation of your results and moving to general implications (Fig.  2 ). This section typically begins with a restatement of the main findings, which can usually be accomplished with a few carefully-crafted sentences.

figure 2

Major elements of the discussion section of an original research article. Often, the elements overlap

Next, interpret the meaning or explain the significance of your results, lifting the reader’s gaze from the study’s specific findings to more general applications. Then, compare these study findings with other research. Are these findings in agreement or disagreement with those from other studies? Does this study impart additional nuance to well-accepted theories? Situate your findings within the broader context of scientific literature, then explain the pathways or mechanisms that might give rise to, or explain, the results.

Journals vary in their approach to strengths and limitations sections: some are embedded paragraphs within the discussion section, while some mandate separate section headings. Keep in mind that every study has strengths and limitations. Candidly reporting yours helps readers to correctly interpret your research findings.

The next element of the discussion is a summary of the potential impacts and applications of the research. Should these results be used to optimally design an intervention? Does the work have implications for clinical protocols or public policy? These considerations will help the reader to further grasp the possible impacts of the presented work.

Finally, the discussion should conclude with specific suggestions for future work. Here, you have an opportunity to illuminate specific gaps in the literature that compel further study. Avoid the phrase “future research is necessary” because the recommendation is too general to be helpful to readers. Instead, provide substantive and specific recommendations for future studies. Table 4 provides common discussion section pitfalls and recommendations for addressing them.

Follow the Journal’s Author Guidelines

After you select a target journal, identify the journal’s author guidelines to guide the formatting of your manuscript and references. Author guidelines will often (but not always) include instructions for titles, cover letters, and other components of a manuscript submission. Read the guidelines carefully. If you do not follow the guidelines, your article will be sent back to you.

Finally, do not submit your paper to more than one journal at a time. Even if this is not explicitly stated in the author guidelines of your target journal, it is considered inappropriate and unprofessional.

Your title should invite readers to continue reading beyond the first page [ 4 , 5 ]. It should be informative and interesting. Consider describing the independent and dependent variables, the population and setting, the study design, the timing, and even the main result in your title. Because the focus of the paper can change as you write and revise, we recommend you wait until you have finished writing your paper before composing the title.

Be sure that the title is useful for potential readers searching for your topic. The keywords you select should complement those in your title to maximize the likelihood that a researcher will find your paper through a database search. Avoid using abbreviations in your title unless they are very well known, such as SNP, because it is more likely that someone will use a complete word rather than an abbreviation as a search term to help readers find your paper.

After you have written a complete draft, use the checklist (Fig. 3 ) below to guide your revisions and editing. Additional resources are available on writing the abstract and citing references [ 5 ]. When you feel that your work is ready, ask a trusted colleague or two to read the work and provide informal feedback. The box below provides a checklist that summarizes the key points offered in this article.

figure 3

Checklist for manuscript quality

Data Availability

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Vetto JT (2014) Short and sweet: a short course on concise medical writing. J Cancer Educ 29(1):194–195

Brett M, Kording K (2017) Ten simple rules for structuring papers. PLoS ComputBiol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619

Lang TA (2017) Writing a better research article. J Public Health Emerg. https://doi.org/10.21037/jphe.2017.11.06

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Acknowledgments

Ella August is grateful to the Sustainable Sciences Institute for mentoring her in training researchers on writing and publishing their research.

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Busse, C., August, E. How to Write and Publish a Research Paper for a Peer-Reviewed Journal. J Canc Educ 36 , 909–913 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-020-01751-z

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An Undergraduate's Guide to Funding and Publishing Research

  • URECA and other SBU Research Programs and Opportunities
  • Funding Your Research
  • Publishing Your Research: Why and How?
  • Publishing Your Research: List of Undergraduate Journals

SBU's own publications

Note that among the journals listed here are SBU's own publications such as  SBU Brooklogue ,  Young Investigator's Review  and the Stony Brook Undergraduate History Journal . 

How do I know whether my discipline is considered a Humanities or Social Science field?

Humanities includes fields such as Art History, Classics, English, Comparative Literature, History, Musicology, and Philosophy. Sometimes History can be considered broadly as either a Humanities or Social Science discipline, but for the sake of this list, most history journals are listed in the Arts & Humanities category. Likewise, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and related fields often use methods from both Humanities and Social Science research, so you might find related topics on either the Humanities or Social Science list. Psychology is another borderline discipline that might be classified as either a social science or STEM field. For the sake of this list, Psychology is listed with the Social Sciences. STEM fields are those affiliated with science, technology, engineering, or math.

Journals that publish undergraduate research

There are many journals that focus specifically on publishing undergraduate research. The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) keeps an ever growing list of journals that feature undergraduate work . However, many of those listed by CUR are hosted by a specific institution and might only publish the work of their own students, and others might not be peer-reviewed or have publishing fees, so read the descriptions carefully. And, as always, carefully review each journal's website, published articles, and the author submission guidelines before submitting your work.

Below is a list of selected journals that SBU undergraduates are eligible to submit to, organized into the following categories:

  • Broad Scope: Journals that publish research in any disciplinary area.
  • Arts and Humanities : Fields such as Art History, Classics, English, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, History, Musicology, Philosophy, Theology, and Writing & Rhetoric. Sometimes History-related fields are also classified as a Social Science, but on this page, most history journals are in the Arts & Humanities category.
  • Social Sciences: Fields such as Sociology, Psychology, Economics, International Affairs, Geography, Sustainability, Political Science, and Human Rights are included here.
  • STEM : Fields in the hard sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Broad Scope: Journals that publish research in any discipline

  • Aletheia: The Alpha Chi Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship Peer-reviewed journal for undergraduate scholarship run by the Alpha Chi National College Honor Society.
  • American Journal of Undergraduate Research (AJUR) AJUR is a national, independent, faculty peer-reviewed, open-source, quarterly, multidisciplinary student research journal.
  • Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research (BJUR) Submission of original, scholarly research articles is open to undergraduates from any accredited college or university. BJUR publishes scholarship across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
  • Discussions: The Undergraduate Research Journal of Case Western Reserve University The journal accepts research papers written by current undergraduate students from accredited colleges and universities around the globe. The research can be on any topic.
  • Inquiries: Social Sciences, Arts, & Humanities An open access academic journal focusing on publishing high quality original work across a range of disciplines, especially on work in the social sciences, arts, and humanities.
  • International Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activities (IJURCA) Peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to the publication of outstanding scholarship by undergraduates and their mentors. Accepts submissions from all academic disciplines, including original research in the the form of articles and literature reviews, as well as creative work in a variety of media.
  • Journal of Student Research Multidisciplinary and faculty-reviewed journal devoted to the rapid dissemination of current research done by high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.
  • Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research Multidisciplinary scholarly journal produced by a team of Monmouth College student editors and faculty members with peer and faculty reviewers for each article.
  • SBU Brooklogue SBU's exclusively undergraduate, peer-reviewed journal for humanities and social sciences.
  • Undergraduate Research Journal Double-blind, educator-reviewed print and electronic journal published annually. A forum for multidisciplinary undergraduate research and creative endeavors including case studies, conceptual pieces, creative writing, journalism writings, literature reviews, original art, photography, and scientific studies. Highlights mentored undergraduate scholarly products across all disciplines from all types of higher education institutions.
  • UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity The official undergraduate journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. Submissions are accepted from undergraduates in the following categories: STEM, Social Science, Humanities, Fine Art, and Creative Writing.

Arts and Humanities

  • Animus: The Undergraduate Classical Journal of the University of Chicago Supports undergraduate scholarship in the Classics and related fields.
  • Apollon Undergraduate Journal A peer-reviewed journal run by faculty and students at Fairfield University. Any undergraduate student whose research was produced through coursework in the humanities may submit.
  • Archive: An Undergraduate Journal of History Accepts submissions of History scholarship, including scholarly papers, articles, book reviews, and historical essays from undergraduate students of all majors from colleges and universities in the U.S. or abroad.
  • Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics Original manuscripts on any topic related to Classics from undergraduate students in any major at an institution which confers a bachelor's degree are eligible to submit.
  • Clio's Scroll: The Berkeley Undergraduate History Journal The journal publishes articles by undergraduates and recent graduates of any university on historical topics.
  • Dies Ligibiles: An Undergraduate Journal of Medieval Studies The journal accepts research papers, book reviews, translations, and art in English, French, and Spanish from any undergraduate student at any college or university. The work must pertain to the time period 400 - 1600 CE.
  • Epistemai: An Undergraduate Philosophy Journal A student-run philosophy journal at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. The journal publishes short, original philosophical work done by undergraduates from universities across the country, and internationally.
  • Falsafa: Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy Run by the Philosophy Club at the University of California, Irvine, this journal highlights philosophical ideas and research by undergraduates.
  • Forbes & Fifth This undergraduate journal of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh considers both scholarly and creative work from students at any accredited university in the world.
  • The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era Open access peer-reviewed undergraduate journal that publishes academic essays, public history essays, and book reviews on the Civil War Era.
  • History Matters: An Undergraduate Journal of Historical Research An undergraduate history journal published annually by the Department of History at Appalachian State University. The journal is indexed by EBSCOhost's America: History and Life.
  • Journal of Art History and Museum Studies (JAHMS) An undergraduate peer-reviewed journal that publishes undergraduate scholarship by a diverse coalition of student artists and historians.
  • The Kennesaw Tower: Undergraduate Foreign Language Research Journal Annual undergraduate double blind and peer-reviewed journal publishes scholarly work of advanced undergraduates students in Chinese, FLED, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
  • Mysterion: The Theology Journal of Boston College Publishes undergraduate research from around the world on topics related to theology.
  • Nota Bene: Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Musicology Publishes essays written by undergraduate students from universities around the world. Topics include historical musicology, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, music theory, music education, and interdisciplinary subjects. Double blind review by professors across Canada.
  • The Oswald Review: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Criticism in the Discipline of English Published annually, and requiring a faculty member's endorsement, the refereed journal in indexed in EBSCO and accepts undergraduate criticism and research in the field of English from students throughout the U.S. and abroad.
  • Queen City Writers: a journal of undergraduate writing & composing Refereed journal that publishes essays and multimedia work by undergraduate students affiliated with any post-secondary institution. Topics covered include writing, rhetoric, reading, pedagogy, literacy broadly conceived, popular culture and media, community discourses and multimodal and digital composing.
  • Rock Creek Review An undergraduate journal edited, produced and published at Heidelberg University in partnership with the English Department. The journal publishes literary research from schools around the world for an annual publication. Check the website for the "call for papers," which will explain the theme of the next issue.
  • RhetTech Undergraduate Journal Run by students at James Madison University, this journal showcases exemplary work being done in undergraduate writing, rhetoric, and technical communication courses around the country.
  • Simpliciter: Brandies Philosophy Journal Run by students at Brandeis University, this journal aims to recognize excellent works of philosophy produced by undergraduates from universities anywhere in the world.
  • sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies A peer-reviewed journal devoted to the diverse voices of emerging scholar-activists, authors, and artists in Women's Gender & Queer Studies and related fields. First established at McGill University, sprinkle is now published at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and welcomes submissions from around the world.
  • Stance: An International Undergraduate Philosophy Journal Peer-reviewed journal publishes original work by undergraduates from around the world.
  • Stony Brook Undergraduate History Journal Peer-reviewed publication that showcases the research of SBU students writing about history at the local, national and international levels.
  • UC Berkeley Comparative Literature Undergraduate Journal Publishes undergraduate research in comparative texts and media, treating a broad range of topics including theoretical literary discourse, international trends in literature, and comparisons for national literature. Showcases the best work across the U.S. and also highlight more contemplative writing by students regarding multicultural issues, culture shock, or transnational experiences such as studying abroad.
  • UC Santa Barbara Undergraduate Journal of History A space for undergraduates to share original research other scholarly works of history. Reviewed by graduate students with faculty mentorship.
  • The Word: The Stanford Journal of Student Hiphop Research Continually solicits research papers and blog content related to hiphop culture. An open-source, open peer-refereed journal. Open to undergraduates from any college or university.
  • Xchanges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Technical Communication, Rhetoric, and Writing Across the Curriculum The fall issues publishes these and research projects of upper-level undergraduate students. Submissions may be traditional articles or multimodal "webtexts." Based in the English Department at the University of New Mexico.
  • Yale Historical Review Welcomes works from undergraduates at any institution on any historically relevant topic.
  • Young Scholars in Writing (YSW) An international peer-reviewed journal. Publishes original research and theoretical articles by undergraduates of all majors and years on the subjects of rhetoric, writing, writers, discourse, language, and related topics.

Social Sciences

  • Afkar: The Undergraduate Journal of Middle East Studies International peer-reviewed journal that accepts research articles, essays, and book reviews that focus on the politics, history, culture, and society of the Middle East and North Africa.
  • Al Noor Boston College's Middle Eastern Studies journal. It is run by undergraduates and publishes work from students around the world.
  • Chicago Journal of Foreign Policy: University of Chicago's Premiere Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs Accepts submissions from undergraduates from around the world on articles related to foreign policy, international relations, and related topics, preferably pertaining to the period since 1945..
  • Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas A joint project of Northern Illinois University and Arizona State University, Compass publishes work related to American democracy understood in the broad contexts of political philosophy, history, literature, economics, and culture.
  • Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development To encourage an international community to think more broadly, deeply, and analytically about sustainable development, the journal publishes work by students, researchers, professors, and practitioners from a variety of academic fields and geographic regions.
  • Critique: a worldwide student journal of politics Peer-reviewed journal that publishes scholarship by students of political science. The journal is recognized by the American Political Science Association and indexed by EBSCO.
  • The Developing Economist Student-run undergraduate economics research journal, published with support from the Longhorn Chapter of the Omicron Delta Epsilon Economics Honor Society and the Department of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin.
  • Issues in Political Economy Co-edited by undergraduates at Elon University and the University of Mary Washington, the journal publishes undergraduate research in the field of economics and is indexed in Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Economics and Finance.
  • Journal of Integrated Social Sciences A web-based, peer-reviewed journal committed to the scholarly investigation of social phenomena. We especially encourage students and their faculty advisors to submit the results of their investigations in Psychology, Sociology, and Gender Studies.
  • Journal of Interpersonal Relations, Intergroup Relations, and Identity (JIRIRI) Affiliated with the Universite de Montreal, the international peer-reviewed journal publishes the work of undergraduates on new theoretical ideas in the fields of psychology, identity, interpersonal and intergroup relations. It publishes both theoretical and empirical articles.
  • Journal of Politics and Society Published by the student group Helvidius at Columbia University, the journal focuses on undergraduate interdisciplinary research in the social sciences.
  • The Journal of Undergraduate Ethnic Minority Psychology (JUEMP) Open access, double blind, peer-reviewed journal devoted to publishing research authored or co-authored by undergraduates. The journal is especially interested in submissions that are from ethnic minorities perspectives, that focus on the thoughts and behaviors of ethnic minority populations, or both.
  • New Errands: The Undergraduate Journal of American Studies Sponsored by The Eastern American Studies Association and the American Studies Program at Penn State Harrisburg, this journal publishes undergraduate research in the field of American Studies.
  • The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Review International undergraduate journal housed in the Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Virginia Tech. Through a double blind review process, the journal publishes original research in the humanities and social sciences from undergraduates worldwide.
  • Process: Journal of Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Scholarship Published quarterly, the journal publishes undergraduate writings that rigorously engage with issues of social justice, transformative education, politics, identity, and cultural production. Publishes both critical essays and non-traditional or multimodal compositions.
  • Righting Wrongs: A Journal of Human Rights Based at Webster University's Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, this peer-reviewed academic journal publishes undergraduate research papers, book reviews, opinion pieces, and photo essays that explore human rights issues.
  • Social Moments: A Student Journal of Social Relations Interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal examining the social and cultural world through a social science lens. All undergraduate and graduate students are invited to submit work in any social science discipline.
  • Sociology between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics Undergraduates, graduates, and professionals in sociology and related fields may submit their articles, books and film reviews, and point of view essays. Double blind peer review.
  • Undergraduate Economic Review (UER) Supported by the Department of Economics and The Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan University, this is an open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes undergraduate research in the field of economics from around the world.
  • Undergraduate Journal of Global Citizenship Based at Fairfield University, the journal publishes undergraduate research on topics related to International Studies such as global awareness, interdependence, environmental responsibility, social justice, humanitarianism, and other themes that promote the understanding of global citizenship.
  • Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning & Community-Based Research Refereed, multidisciplinary, open access undergraduate journal that publishes articles from students all around the world. Accepted articles contribute to the literature on service learning and community-based research through reflection, research, or analysis. Based at University of North Carolina Wilmington.
  • The Undergraduate Research Journal of Psychology at UCLA (URJP) Based at UCLA, but accepting submissions of undergraduate research from institutions all over the world, this peer-reviewed journal aims to empower undergraduate students to engage in and with research and facilitate scientific conversation and inquiry in the field of psychology.

STEM Fields

  • Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal (CUSJ) Open access science journal that publishes manuscripts resulting from significant scientific research or analysis. Each paper undergoes a double-blind peer review process and a faculty review by the CUSJ Faculty Advisory Board.
  • EvoS: The Evolutional Studies Consortium A peer-reviewed open access journal, EvoS welcomes work from all academic disciplines and interdisciplinary scholarship that incorporates evolutionary theory.
  • Illumin Magazine: A Review of Engineering in Everyday Life An online magazine dedicated to exploring the science and technology behind the things we encounter every day. Features the work of University of Southern California undergraduate engineers, as well as submissions from universities across the U.S.
  • Impulse: The Premier Undergraduate Neuroscience Journal International online neuroscience journal for undergraduate publications.
  • International Journal of Exercise Science This journal engages undergraduate and graduate students in scholarly activity as both authors and reviewers. Articles on exercise science undergo peer review.
  • Intersect: The Stanford Journal of Science, Technology, and Society An open access international science, technology, and society research journal that accepts undergraduate, graduate, and PhD submissions at the intersection of history, culture, sociology, art, literature, business, law, health, and design with science and technology. Students from around the world are invited to submit.
  • Involve: A Journal of Mathematics High quality mathematical research involving students from all academic levels. Submissions should include substantial faculty input; faculty co-authorship is required and the submission should come from a faculty member.
  • Journal of Undergraduate Chemistry Research Peer-reviewed journal that publishes undergraduate students' work in chemistry, including analytical, organic, inorganic, physical, polymers, and biochemistry.
  • Journal of Undergraduate Kinesiology Research Published by the Kinesiology Department at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, the peer-reviewed, journal is dedicated to original undergraduate research in Kinesiology. Currently, the research originates from students at the University of Wisconsin, but undergraduates from all institutions are invited to submit.
  • Journal of Undergraduate Reports in Physics (JURP) Peer-reviewed publication of the Society of Physics Students comprised of undergraduate research, outreach, and scholarly reporting.
  • Journal of Young Investigators (JYI) JYI publishes original work in the sciences written by undergraduates mentored by a faculty member. The mission of the journal is to improve undergraduate science training by providing innovative, high quality educational experiences in science writing, publication, and the peer-review process.
  • Psi Chi Journal Undergraduate, graduate, and faculty submissions welcome year round to this peer-reviewed psychology journal.
  • Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal Devoted entirely to papers written by undergraduates on topics in the mathematical sciences. Sponsored by the Mathematics Department at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, the journal accepts submissions from undergraduates around the world and faculty co-authors are not permitted.
  • RURALS: Review of Undergraduate Research in Agricultural and Life Sciences Faculty-refereed international journal devoted to the publication of high quality research by undergraduates in all agricultural research problem areas.
  • SIAM Undergraduate Research Online (SIURO) Run by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), SIURO publishes articles written by undergraduates from all over the world in the field of computational mathematics. Each paper must be submitted with a letter from a faculty advisor.
  • Spectrum Published by the University of Alberta, this multidisciplinary journal publishes research completed by undergraduates in a variety of formats including research articles, review articles, music, video, visual arts, and creative writing.
  • Spora: A Journal of Biomathematics Published by Illinois State, this is an open access refereed research journal dedicated to publishing high quality manuscripts by undergraduate or graduate students that describe mathematical and statistical techniques to solve problems in biological settings, as well as in experimental biology. Requires an article processing charge.
  • PUMP Journal of Undergraduate Research PUMP stands for Preparing Undergraduate Mathematicians for Ph.D.s, and the journal publishes articles by undergraduates students who want to pursue doctoral studies in the Mathematical Sciences. The journal especially encourages submissions by students from underrepresented groups. Topics include pure and applied mathematics and statistics and authors may submit research papers, papers containing new proofs of known results, and expository papers which propose original points of view.
  • Undergraduate Journal of Experimental Microbiology and Immunology (UJEMI+) Based at the University of British Columbia, the journal has two versions -- one that publishes only UBC students (UJEMI) and the other that is open to external submissions (UJEMI+). Dedicated to the publication of undergraduate articles in fields related to microbiology and immunology, the journal requires a formal endorsement from a course instructor or researcher who mentored the student authors.
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Research Method

Home » How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

How to Publish a Research Paper – Step by Step Guide

Table of Contents

How to Publish a Research Paper

Publishing a research paper is an important step for researchers to disseminate their findings to a wider audience and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their field. Whether you are a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, or an established researcher, publishing a paper requires careful planning, rigorous research, and clear writing. In this process, you will need to identify a research question , conduct a thorough literature review , design a methodology, analyze data, and draw conclusions. Additionally, you will need to consider the appropriate journals or conferences to submit your work to and adhere to their guidelines for formatting and submission. In this article, we will discuss some ways to publish your Research Paper.

How to Publish a Research Paper

To Publish a Research Paper follow the guide below:

  • Conduct original research : Conduct thorough research on a specific topic or problem. Collect data, analyze it, and draw conclusions based on your findings.
  • Write the paper : Write a detailed paper describing your research. It should include an abstract, introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion.
  • Choose a suitable journal or conference : Look for a journal or conference that specializes in your research area. You can check their submission guidelines to ensure your paper meets their requirements.
  • Prepare your submission: Follow the guidelines and prepare your submission, including the paper, abstract, cover letter, and any other required documents.
  • Submit the paper: Submit your paper online through the journal or conference website. Make sure you meet the submission deadline.
  • Peer-review process : Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field who will provide feedback on the quality of your research, methodology, and conclusions.
  • Revisions : Based on the feedback you receive, revise your paper and resubmit it.
  • Acceptance : Once your paper is accepted, you will receive a notification from the journal or conference. You may need to make final revisions before the paper is published.
  • Publication : Your paper will be published online or in print. You can also promote your work through social media or other channels to increase its visibility.

How to Choose Journal for Research Paper Publication

Here are some steps to follow to help you select an appropriate journal:

  • Identify your research topic and audience : Your research topic and intended audience should guide your choice of journal. Identify the key journals in your field of research and read the scope and aim of the journal to determine if your paper is a good fit.
  • Analyze the journal’s impact and reputation : Check the impact factor and ranking of the journal, as well as its acceptance rate and citation frequency. A high-impact journal can give your paper more visibility and credibility.
  • Consider the journal’s publication policies : Look for the journal’s publication policies such as the word count limit, formatting requirements, open access options, and submission fees. Make sure that you can comply with the requirements and that the journal is in line with your publication goals.
  • Look at recent publications : Review recent issues of the journal to evaluate whether your paper would fit in with the journal’s current content and style.
  • Seek advice from colleagues and mentors: Ask for recommendations and suggestions from your colleagues and mentors in your field, especially those who have experience publishing in the same or similar journals.
  • Be prepared to make changes : Be prepared to revise your paper according to the requirements and guidelines of the chosen journal. It is also important to be open to feedback from the editor and reviewers.

List of Journals for Research Paper Publications

There are thousands of academic journals covering various fields of research. Here are some of the most popular ones, categorized by field:

General/Multidisciplinary

  • Nature: https://www.nature.com/
  • Science: https://www.sciencemag.org/
  • PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/
  • The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/
  • JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama

Social Sciences/Humanities

  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/psp
  • Journal of Consumer Research: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/jcr
  • Journal of Educational Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/edu
  • Journal of Applied Psychology: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl
  • Journal of Communication: https://academic.oup.com/joc
  • American Journal of Political Science: https://ajps.org/
  • Journal of International Business Studies: https://www.jibs.net/
  • Journal of Marketing Research: https://www.ama.org/journal-of-marketing-research/

Natural Sciences

  • Journal of Biological Chemistry: https://www.jbc.org/
  • Cell: https://www.cell.com/
  • Science Advances: https://advances.sciencemag.org/
  • Chemical Reviews: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/chreay
  • Angewandte Chemie: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213765
  • Physical Review Letters: https://journals.aps.org/prl/
  • Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/2156531X
  • Journal of High Energy Physics: https://link.springer.com/journal/13130

Engineering/Technology

  • IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=5962385
  • IEEE Transactions on Power Systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=59
  • IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=42
  • IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=87
  • Journal of Engineering Mechanics: https://ascelibrary.org/journal/jenmdt
  • Journal of Materials Science: https://www.springer.com/journal/10853
  • Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/jcej
  • Journal of Mechanical Design: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign

Medical/Health Sciences

  • New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/
  • The BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal): https://www.bmj.com/
  • Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA): https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama
  • Annals of Internal Medicine: https://www.acpjournals.org/journal/aim
  • American Journal of Epidemiology: https://academic.oup.com/aje
  • Journal of Clinical Oncology: https://ascopubs.org/journal/jco
  • Journal of Infectious Diseases: https://academic.oup.com/jid

List of Conferences for Research Paper Publications

There are many conferences that accept research papers for publication. The specific conferences you should consider will depend on your field of research. Here are some suggestions for conferences in a few different fields:

Computer Science and Information Technology:

  • IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM): https://www.ieee-infocom.org/
  • ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
  • IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP): https://www.ieee-security.org/TC/SP/
  • ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/
  • ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI): https://chi2022.acm.org/

Engineering:

  • IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA): https://www.ieee-icra.org/
  • International Conference on Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (ICMAE): http://www.icmae.org/
  • International Conference on Civil and Environmental Engineering (ICCEE): http://www.iccee.org/
  • International Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (ICMSE): http://www.icmse.org/
  • International Conference on Energy and Power Engineering (ICEPE): http://www.icepe.org/

Natural Sciences:

  • American Chemical Society National Meeting & Exposition: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/meetings/national-meeting.html
  • American Physical Society March Meeting: https://www.aps.org/meetings/march/
  • International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology (ICEST): http://www.icest.org/
  • International Conference on Natural Science and Environment (ICNSE): http://www.icnse.org/
  • International Conference on Life Science and Biological Engineering (LSBE): http://www.lsbe.org/

Social Sciences:

  • Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA): https://www.asanet.org/annual-meeting-2022
  • International Conference on Social Science and Humanities (ICSSH): http://www.icssh.org/
  • International Conference on Psychology and Behavioral Sciences (ICPBS): http://www.icpbs.org/
  • International Conference on Education and Social Science (ICESS): http://www.icess.org/
  • International Conference on Management and Information Science (ICMIS): http://www.icmis.org/

How to Publish a Research Paper in Journal

Publishing a research paper in a journal is a crucial step in disseminating scientific knowledge and contributing to the field. Here are the general steps to follow:

  • Choose a research topic : Select a topic of your interest and identify a research question or problem that you want to investigate. Conduct a literature review to identify the gaps in the existing knowledge that your research will address.
  • Conduct research : Develop a research plan and methodology to collect data and conduct experiments. Collect and analyze data to draw conclusions that address the research question.
  • Write a paper: Organize your findings into a well-structured paper with clear and concise language. Your paper should include an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. Use academic language and provide references for your sources.
  • Choose a journal: Choose a journal that is relevant to your research topic and audience. Consider factors such as impact factor, acceptance rate, and the reputation of the journal.
  • Follow journal guidelines : Review the submission guidelines and formatting requirements of the journal. Follow the guidelines carefully to ensure that your paper meets the journal’s requirements.
  • Submit your paper : Submit your paper to the journal through the online submission system or by email. Include a cover letter that briefly explains the significance of your research and why it is suitable for the journal.
  • Wait for reviews: Your paper will be reviewed by experts in the field. Be prepared to address their comments and make revisions to your paper.
  • Revise and resubmit: Make revisions to your paper based on the reviewers’ comments and resubmit it to the journal. If your paper is accepted, congratulations! If not, consider revising and submitting it to another journal.
  • Address reviewer comments : Reviewers may provide comments and suggestions for revisions to your paper. Address these comments carefully and thoughtfully to improve the quality of your paper.
  • Submit the final version: Once your revisions are complete, submit the final version of your paper to the journal. Be sure to follow any additional formatting guidelines and requirements provided by the journal.
  • Publication : If your paper is accepted, it will be published in the journal. Some journals provide online publication while others may publish a print version. Be sure to cite your published paper in future research and communicate your findings to the scientific community.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Students

Here are some steps you can follow to publish a research paper as an Under Graduate or a High School Student:

  • Select a topic: Choose a topic that is relevant and interesting to you, and that you have a good understanding of.
  • Conduct research : Gather information and data on your chosen topic through research, experiments, surveys, or other means.
  • Write the paper : Start with an outline, then write the introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of the paper. Be sure to follow any guidelines provided by your instructor or the journal you plan to submit to.
  • Edit and revise: Review your paper for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Ask a peer or mentor to review your paper and provide feedback for improvement.
  • Choose a journal : Look for journals that publish papers in your field of study and that are appropriate for your level of research. Some popular journals for students include PLOS ONE, Nature, and Science.
  • Submit the paper: Follow the submission guidelines for the journal you choose, which typically include a cover letter, abstract, and formatting requirements. Be prepared to wait several weeks to months for a response.
  • Address feedback : If your paper is accepted with revisions, address the feedback from the reviewers and resubmit your paper. If your paper is rejected, review the feedback and consider revising and resubmitting to a different journal.

How to Publish a Research Paper for Free

Publishing a research paper for free can be challenging, but it is possible. Here are some steps you can take to publish your research paper for free:

  • Choose a suitable open-access journal: Look for open-access journals that are relevant to your research area. Open-access journals allow readers to access your paper without charge, so your work will be more widely available.
  • Check the journal’s reputation : Before submitting your paper, ensure that the journal is reputable by checking its impact factor, publication history, and editorial board.
  • Follow the submission guidelines : Every journal has specific guidelines for submitting papers. Make sure to follow these guidelines carefully to increase the chances of acceptance.
  • Submit your paper : Once you have completed your research paper, submit it to the journal following their submission guidelines.
  • Wait for the review process: Your paper will undergo a peer-review process, where experts in your field will evaluate your work. Be patient during this process, as it can take several weeks or even months.
  • Revise your paper : If your paper is rejected, don’t be discouraged. Revise your paper based on the feedback you receive from the reviewers and submit it to another open-access journal.
  • Promote your research: Once your paper is published, promote it on social media and other online platforms. This will increase the visibility of your work and help it reach a wider audience.

Journals and Conferences for Free Research Paper publications

Here are the websites of the open-access journals and conferences mentioned:

Open-Access Journals:

  • PLOS ONE – https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
  • BMC Research Notes – https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/
  • Frontiers in… – https://www.frontiersin.org/
  • Journal of Open Research Software – https://openresearchsoftware.metajnl.com/
  • PeerJ – https://peerj.com/

Conferences:

  • IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) – https://globecom2022.ieee-globecom.org/
  • IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) – https://infocom2022.ieee-infocom.org/
  • IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) – https://www.ieee-icdm.org/
  • ACM SIGCOMM Conference on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) – https://conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/
  • ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) – https://www.sigsac.org/ccs/CCS2022/

Importance of Research Paper Publication

Research paper publication is important for several reasons, both for individual researchers and for the scientific community as a whole. Here are some reasons why:

  • Advancing scientific knowledge : Research papers provide a platform for researchers to present their findings and contribute to the body of knowledge in their field. These papers often contain novel ideas, experimental data, and analyses that can help to advance scientific understanding.
  • Building a research career : Publishing research papers is an essential component of building a successful research career. Researchers are often evaluated based on the number and quality of their publications, and having a strong publication record can increase one’s chances of securing funding, tenure, or a promotion.
  • Peer review and quality control: Publication in a peer-reviewed journal means that the research has been scrutinized by other experts in the field. This peer review process helps to ensure the quality and validity of the research findings.
  • Recognition and visibility : Publishing a research paper can bring recognition and visibility to the researchers and their work. It can lead to invitations to speak at conferences, collaborations with other researchers, and media coverage.
  • Impact on society : Research papers can have a significant impact on society by informing policy decisions, guiding clinical practice, and advancing technological innovation.

Advantages of Research Paper Publication

There are several advantages to publishing a research paper, including:

  • Recognition: Publishing a research paper allows researchers to gain recognition for their work, both within their field and in the academic community as a whole. This can lead to new collaborations, invitations to conferences, and other opportunities to share their research with a wider audience.
  • Career advancement : A strong publication record can be an important factor in career advancement, particularly in academia. Publishing research papers can help researchers secure funding, grants, and promotions.
  • Dissemination of knowledge : Research papers are an important way to share new findings and ideas with the broader scientific community. By publishing their research, scientists can contribute to the collective body of knowledge in their field and help advance scientific understanding.
  • Feedback and peer review : Publishing a research paper allows other experts in the field to provide feedback on the research, which can help improve the quality of the work and identify potential flaws or limitations. Peer review also helps ensure that research is accurate and reliable.
  • Citation and impact : Published research papers can be cited by other researchers, which can help increase the impact and visibility of the research. High citation rates can also help establish a researcher’s reputation and credibility within their field.

About the author

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Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Beall's List

of Potential Predatory Journals and Publishers

​Potential predatory scholarly open‑access publishers

Instructions : first, find the journal’s publisher – it is usually written at the bottom of the journal’s webpage or in the “About” section. Then simply enter the publisher’s name or its URL in the search box above. If the journal does not have a publisher use the  Standalone Journals  list. All journals published by a predatory publisher are potentially predatory unless stated otherwise.

Excluded – decide after reading

  • Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)  – I decided not to include MDPI on the list itself. However, I would urge anyone that wants to publish with this publisher to thoroughly  read this wiki article detailing their possible ethical/publishing problems, and a recent article discussing their growth.

Useful pages

​List of journals falsely claiming to be indexed by DOAJ

DOAJ: Journals added and removed

Nonrecommended medical periodicals

Retraction Watch

Flaky Academic Journals Blog

List of scholarly publishing stings​

Conferences

Questionable conferences [ archive ]

How to avoid predatory conferences

Flaky Academic Conferences Blog

Evaluating journals

Journal Evaluation Tool

JCR Master Journal List

DOAJ Journal Search

Think Check Submit

Original description by J. Beall

This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers. We recommend that scholars read the available reviews, assessments and descriptions provided here, and then decide for themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors or on editorial boards. In a few cases, non-open access publishers whose practices match those of predatory publishers have been added to the list as well. The criteria for determining predatory publishers are  here .​ We hope that tenure and promotion committees can also decide for themselves how importantly or not to rate articles published in these journals in the context of their own institutional standards and/or geocultural locus.  We emphasize that journal publishers and journals change in their business and editorial practices over time. This list is kept up-to-date to the best extent possible but may not reflect sudden, unreported, or unknown enhancements.

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list of publishers of research paper

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