I am in the first year of my PhD, and I have just received the first comments on a submitted draft of my literature review from my supervisors. Today they told me to start thinking of which journals I would like to publish in. I have no idea. Would have thought that they would suggest the journal. How would you go about selecting a journal?

Hey Ailicec! I found it really hard to select the journal for my first paper too, but luckily my supervisor helped out. She hasn't been so helpful for the rest, usually wanting me to make a few suggestions first before we decide. There are a few things to consider. Firstly, there are some journals that are devoted to review papers, so if there is one like this for your subject area then that's worth looking at. Another thing I find useful is to look at the reference list for the paper and see which journals those papers have been published in- at least that gives you some kind of idea about which journals are open to publishing what type of topic. Another thing to consider is the word limit for each journal- these vary a lot, so if you have a relatively long paper then you need to seek out a journal that has a decent word limit! And finally- have a look at the impact factors or the reputation of the journal. You can either aim high with a view to resubmitting somewhere else if it doesn't work out, or play it a bit safe and go for a more modest journal. I have done both at one point or another- I aimed high with my first one and got lucky, but then with one of my other papers I wasn't very confident about I just played safe and went for a solid but less impressive journal, on the basis that I could not deal with the type of comments that might have come back from somewhere more prestigious! Maybe that's a wimp's way out though! With the others I have tended to compromise and go somewhere in the middle. Also think about where your other papers might eventually go- it doesn't matter that much at this stage but it's nice to have a range of journals in your publications list rather than submitting everything to the same journal! And anyway if you think of a few you can suggest, I'm sure your sup will steer you in the right direction! Good luck! KB

Thank you keenbean. That is really helpful.