poll

[sildra]

This came up in a couple conversations with different people last week

Comments

[q10]

For most of what I do, there are like five reputable journals, and it's narrowed down by the exact subject matter and my current tradeoff between prestige and speed (the most prestigious ones are not the fastest).

When I'm outside of my comfort zone on that, I ask somebody older and wiser, and pick the highest thing on their list of suggestions that doesn't have obviously onerous submission procedures or submission formatting requirements.

I recently tried submitting to a special issue of a journal I don't normally interact with, on the advice/encouragement of one of the special issue editors. I am getting a publication out of that, but, with the benefit of hindsight, I still regret it.

[sildra]

Thanks.

How do you judge prestige?

[q10]

well, like i said, there are only like five contenders, so i've just sort of absorbed the received wisdom about their relative ranking from cultural immersion. when i'm going outside of my comfort zone, i trust the prestige ranking given by whatever older and wiser person i've asked for advice.

[sildra]

Any idea what those prestige rankings are based on?

How would you judge how to rank a new journal in your field? (Assuming it was with a publishing house and/or editorial staff that suggested that it wasn't just a crank journal.)

[ursule]

Well, there are a couple of obvious suspects, as far as journals go. One of them has my advisor as managing editor, so if I want to submit there I have to negotiate with him about whether it would be weird (esp. if I've told him too much about the paper and he has ended up as a co-author). When I'm trying to come up with a new journal to submit to, I usually use the Australian Math Society rankings. Typically I start with A-ranked journals in the Australian list, and (if necessary) default to conference proceedings. I also try to judge prestige based on the people publishing in a venue whom I know; mostly, though, it's a process of trial and error

[sildra]

Interesting--that list seems to have a lot of physics journals, too. Any idea what their ranking criteria are?

[ursule]

I think they use some combination of impact factor and reputation.

[sildra]

Hmm... looking up impact factor for the physics journals, I see one get an A* rating that has half the impact factor of another with an A rating, but the former probably has more mathy papers.