journal of writing research scimago

Journal of Writing Research Impact, Factor and Metrics, Impact Score, Ranking, h-index, SJR, Rating, Publisher, ISSN, and More

Impact score.

Note: The impact score or impact index shown here is equivalent to the average number of times documents published in a journal/conference in the past two years have been cited in the current year (i.e., Cites / Doc. (2 years)). It is based on Scopus data and can be a little higher or different compared to the impact factor (IF) produced by Journal Citation Report. Please refer to the Web of Science data source to check the exact journal impact factor ™ (Thomson Reuters) metric.

Important Metrics and Factor

About journal of writing research.

Journal of Writing Research is a journal covering the technologies/fields/categories related to Education (Q1); Linguistics and Language (Q1); Literature and Literary Theory (Q1) . It is published by University of Antwerp . The overall rank of Journal of Writing Research is 3833 . According to SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) , this journal is ranked 1.059 . SCImago Journal Rank is an indicator, which measures the scientific influence of journals. It considers the number of citations received by a journal and the importance of the journals from where these citations come. SJR acts as an alternative to the Journal Impact Factor (or an average number of citations received in last 2 years). This journal has an h-index of 27 . The best quartile for this journal is Q1 .

The ISSN of Journal of Writing Research journal is 22943307, 20301006 . An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is a unique code of 8 digits. It is used for the recognition of journals, newspapers, periodicals, and magazines in all kind of forms, be it print-media or electronic. Journal of Writing Research is cited by a total of 194 articles during the last 3 years (Preceding 2022).

Journal of Writing Research Impact IF 2022-2023

The Impact IF 2022 of Journal of Writing Research is 4.45 , which is computed in 2023 as per its definition. Journal of Writing Research IF is increased by a factor of 1.07 and approximate percentage change is 31.66% when compared to preceding year 2021, which shows a rising trend. The impact IF , also denoted as Journal impact score (JIS), of an academic journal is a measure of the yearly average number of citations to recent articles published in that journal. It is based on Scopus data.

Journal of Writing Research Impact IF 2023 Prediction

Impact IF 2022 of Journal of Writing Research is 4.45 . If the same upward trend persists, Impact IF may rise in 2023 as well.

Impact IF Trend

Year wise impact if of journal of writing research. based on scopus data., journal of writing research h-index.

Journal of Writing Research has an h-index of 27 . It means 27 articles of this journal have more than 27 number of citations. The h-index is a way of measuring the productivity and citation impact of the publications. The h-index is defined as the maximum value of h such that the given journal/author has published h papers that have each been cited at least h number of times.

Journal of Writing Research ISSN

The ISSN of Journal of Writing Research is 22943307, 20301006 . ISSN stands for International Standard Serial Number.

An ISSN is a unique code of 8 digits. It is used for the recognition of journals, newspapers, periodicals, and magazines in all kind of forms, be it print-media or electronic.

Journal of Writing Research Rank and SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)

The overall rank of Journal of Writing Research is 3833 . According to SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), this journal is ranked 1.059 . SCImago Journal Rank is an indicator, which measures the scientific influence of journals. It considers the number of citations received by a journal and the importance of the journals from where these citations come.

SJR of Journal of Writing Research by Year

Ranking of journal of writing research by year, journal of writing research publisher.

Journal of Writing Research is published by University of Antwerp . It's publishing house is located in Belgium . Coverage history of this journal is as following: 2008-2022 . The organization or individual who handles the printing and distribution of printed or digital publications is known as Publisher.

Call For Papers

Visit the official website of the journal/conference to check the further details about the call for papers.

Abbreviation

The IS0 4 standard abbreviation of Journal of Writing Research is J. Writ. Res. . This abbreviation ('J. Writ. Res.') is well recommended and approved for the purpose of indexing, abstraction, referencing and citing goals. It meets all the essential criteria of ISO 4 standard.

ISO 4 (International Organization for Standardization 4) is an international standard that defines a uniform and consistent system for abbreviating serial publication titles and journals.

How to publish in Journal of Writing Research

If your research field is/are related to Education (Q1); Linguistics and Language (Q1); Literature and Literary Theory (Q1) , then please visit the official website of this journal .

Acceptance Rate

• The demand or interest of researchers/scientists in publishing in a specific Journal/Conference.
• Peer review complexity and timeline.
• The mix of unsolicited and invited submissions.
• The time it takes from manuscript submission to final publication.
• And Many More.

It is essential to understand that the acceptance rate/rejection rate of papers varies among journals. Some Journals considers all the manuscripts submissions as a basis of acceptance rate computation. On the other hand, few consider the only manuscripts sent for peer review or few even not bother about the accurate maintenance of total submissions. Hence, it can provide a rough estimation only.

The best way to find out the acceptance rate is to reach out to the associated editor or to check the official website of the Journal/Conference.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What's the latest impact if of the journal of writing research.

Journal of Writing Research latest impact IF is 4.45 . It's evaluated in the year 2022. The highest and the lowest impact IF or impact score of this journal are 4.45 (2022) and 0.70 (2014) , respectively, in the last 9 years. Moreover, its average IS is 1.78 in the previous 9 years.

What's the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) of the Journal of Writing Research?

The Journal of Writing Research has an SJR (SCImago Journal Rank) of 1.059 , according to the latest data. It is computed in the year 2023. In the past 9 years, this journal has recorded a range of SJR, with the highest being 1.205 in 2021 and the lowest being 0.324 in 2014. Furthermore, the average SJR of the Journal of Writing Research over the previous 9-year period stands at 1.78.

What's the latest h-index of the Journal of Writing Research?

The latest h-index of the Journal of Writing Research is 27 .

Who's the publisher of the Journal of Writing Research?

The Journal of Writing Research is published by the University of Antwerp , with its country of publication being the Belgium.

What's the current ranking of the Journal of Writing Research?

The Journal of Writing Research is currently ranked 3833 out of 27955 Journals, Conferences, and Book Series in the latest ranking. Over the course of the last 9 years, this journal has experienced varying rankings, reaching its highest position of 3042 in 2021 and its lowest position of 12325 in 2014.

What's the abbreviation or short name for the Journal of Writing Research?

The standard ISO4 abbreviation for the Journal of Writing Research is J. Writ. Res. .

Is the "Journal of Writing Research" classified as a Journal, Conference and Proceedings, Trade Journal or Book Series?

Journal of Writing Research is classified as a journal that the University of Antwerp publishes.

What's the scope or major areas of the Journal of Writing Research?

• Linguistics and Language
• Literature and Literary Theory

For a more comprehensive understanding of its scope, check the official website of this journal.

What's the ISSN of the Journal of Writing Research?

The Journal of Writing Research is assigned the following International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSN): 22943307, 20301006 .

What's the best quartile of the Journal of Writing Research?

The best quartile for the Journal of Writing Research is Q1 (2022).

What's the coverage history of the Journal of Writing Research?

The Journal of Writing Research coverage history can be summarized as follows: 2008-2022 .

Credits and Sources

• Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), https://www.scimagojr.com/
• Journal Impact Factor, https://clarivate.com/

Impact Score, h-Index, and Other Important Details of These Journals, Conferences, and Books

Check complete list

Year wise Impact Score (IS) of Journal of Writing Research

Top journals/conferences in education, top journals/conferences in linguistics and language, top journals/conferences in literature and literary theory.

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Journal Of Writing Research impact factor, indexing, ranking (2024)

Aim and Scope

The Journal Of Writing Research is a research journal that publishes research related to Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences . This journal is published by the University of Antwerp. The ISSN of this journal is 22943307, 20301006 . Based on the Scopus data, the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) of journal of writing research is 1.059 .

Journal Of Writing Research Ranking

The Impact Factor of Journal Of Writing Research is N/A.

The impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is used to measure the importance or rank of a journal by calculating the times its articles are cited.

The impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia. Impact factors began to be calculated yearly starting from 1975 for journals listed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). ISI was acquired by Thomson Scientific & Healthcare in 1992, and became known as Thomson ISI. In 2018, Thomson-Reuters spun off and sold ISI to Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia. They founded a new corporation, Clarivate , which is now the publisher of the JCR.

Important Metrics

Journal of writing research indexing.

The journal of writing research is indexed in:

• Web of Science (ESCI)

An indexed journal means that the journal has gone through and passed a review process of certain requirements done by a journal indexer.

The Web of Science Core Collection includes the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).

Note: ESCI journals donot come with an impact factor. However, ESCI journals are evaluated every year and those who qualified are transferred to SCIE.

Journal Of Writing Research Impact Factor 2024

The latest impact factor of journal of writing research is N/A .

The impact factor (IF) is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. It is used to measure the importance or rank of a journal by calculating the times it's articles are cited.

Note: Every year, The Clarivate releases the Journal Citation Report (JCR). The JCR provides information about academic journals including impact factor. The latest JCR was released in June, 2023. The JCR 2024 will be released in the June 2024.

Journal Of Writing Research Quartile

The latest Quartile of journal of writing research is Q1 .

Each subject category of journals is divided into four quartiles: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Q1 is occupied by the top 25% of journals in the list; Q2 is occupied by journals in the 25 to 50% group; Q3 is occupied by journals in the 50 to 75% group and Q4 is occupied by journals in the 75 to 100% group.

Publication fee

• Based on the Official Journal Homepage, the journal of writing research does not charge any publication fee.

An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors. Most commonly, it is involved in making a work available as open access (OA), in either a full OA journal or in a hybrid journal.

Journal Publication Time

The Journal Publication Time means the average number of weeks between article submission and publication. According to the journal website, the journal of writing research publishes research articles in 40 weeks on an average.

Call for Papers

Visit to the official website of the journal/ conference to check the details about call for papers.

How to publish in Journal Of Writing Research?

If your research is related to Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences, then visit the official website of journal of writing research and send your manuscript.

Tips for publishing in Journal Of Writing Research:

• Selection of research problem.
• Presenting a solution.
• Designing the paper.
• Make your manuscript publication worthy.
• Write an effective results section.
• Mind your references.

Acceptance Rate

Final summary.

• The impact factor of journal of writing research is N/A.
• The journal of writing research is a reputed research journal.
• It is published by University of Antwerp .
• The journal is indexed in UGC CARE, Scopus, ESCI, DOAJ .
• It is an open access journal .
• The (SJR) SCImago Journal Rank is 1.059 .
• The publication time (Average number of weeks between article submission and publication) of the journal is 40 weeks .

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Journal of Writing Research Impact Factor & Key Scientometrics

Journal of writing research overview, impact factor.

I. Basic Journal Info

Journal ISSN: 20301006, 22943307

Publisher: university of antwerp, history: 2008-2021, journal hompage: link, how to get published:, research categories, scope/description:.

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II. Science Citation Report (SCR)

Journal of writing research scr impact factor, journal of writing research scr journal ranking, journal of writing research scimago sjr rank.

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR indicator) is a measure of scientific influence of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where such citations come from.

Journal of Writing Research Scopus 2-Year Impact Factor Trend

Journal of writing research scopus 3-year impact factor trend, journal of writing research scopus 4-year impact factor trend, journal of writing research impact factor history.

• 2022 Impact Factor 4.455 3.804 3.224
• 2021 Impact Factor 3.378 2.811 2.984
• 2020 Impact Factor 1.471 2.044 1.81
• 2019 Impact Factor 0.889 1.25 1.773
• 2018 Impact Factor 1.292 1.96 2.193
• 2017 Impact Factor 1.179 1.239 1.483
• 2016 Impact Factor 0.818 1.4 1.286
• 2015 Impact Factor 1.632 1.351 1.383
• 2014 Impact Factor 0.633 NA NA
• 2013 Impact Factor 0.929 NA NA
• 2012 Impact Factor 1.333 NA NA
• 2011 Impact Factor 0.941 NA NA
• 2010 Impact Factor 2.111 NA NA
• 2009 Impact Factor 1.667 NA NA
• 2008 Impact Factor 0 NA NA
• 2007 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2006 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2005 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2004 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2003 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2002 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2001 Impact Factor NA NA NA
• 2000 Impact Factor NA NA NA

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Impact factor (IF) is a scientometric factor based on the yearly average number of citations on articles published by a particular journal in the last two years. A journal impact factor is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field. Find out more: What is a good impact factor?

III. Other Science Influence Indicators

Any impact factor or scientometric indicator alone will not give you the full picture of a science journal. There are also other factors such as H-Index, Self-Citation Ratio, SJR, SNIP, etc. Researchers may also consider the practical aspect of a journal such as publication fees, acceptance rate, review speed. ( Learn More )

Journal of Writing Research H-Index

The h-index is an author-level metric that attempts to measure both the productivity and citation impact of the publications of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications

Journal of Writing Research H-Index History

scijournal.org is a platform dedicated to making the search and use of impact factors of science journals easier.

Bibliometrics and Altmetrics: Measuring the Impact of Knowledge

• Peer's Advice for APT Preparation
• Increase the Visibility of Your Research
• Tell Your Impact Story with WORDS
• Tell Your Impact Story with GRAPHICS
• Bibliometrics
• Getting Started
• Overview of Different Metrics
• EBSCO databases
• GoogleScholar
• Web of Science
• Alternative Methods
• Citation Map
• Citation Report
• Author Mapper
• Acceptance Rates
• Eigenfactor
• Impact Factors
• Journal Citation Reports
• SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
• Google Scholar Journal Metrics

DEFINITION: SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)   is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database (Elsevier). It is also a prestige metric based on the idea that "all citations are not created equal." With SJR, the subject field, quality and reputation of the journal has a direct effect on the value of a citation. Using the Google Page Rank algorithm, it was developed by a research group from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) , University of Granada, Extremadura, Carlos III (Madrid) and Alcalá de Henares.

• Was developed using Elsevier Scopus database citation data.
• Is weighted by the prestige of the journal, thereby ‘leveling the playing field’ among journals
• Eliminates manipulation: raise the SJR ranking by being published in more reputable journals
• ‘Shares’ a journal’s prestige equally over the total number of citations in that journal
• Normalizes for differences in citation behavior between subject fields
• SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR)  (open access)
• Journal Metrics  (open access)

Further Reading:

Gonzalez-Pereira, B., Guerrero-Bote, V. & Moya-Anegon, F. (2009).  The SJR indicator: A new indicator of journals' scientific prestige

Map Generator for Subject Citation Relationship

With the SJR tool, you can create maps or bubble charts based on a subject citation relationship for a particular country. Below is a map generated for the United States.

Example of a SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) Search

To compare journals in a specific subject field , follow the steps:

          1. Go to SCImago Journal & Country Rank web site.

          2. Click on the Journals link under Rank image.

          3. Make your selections from the drop down menus. 

          4. Click the Refresh button to generate a report comparing journal rankings .

You can generate similar reports for comparing different countries :

• << Previous: Journal Citation Reports
• Next: SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) >>
• Last Updated: Feb 13, 2024 12:07 PM
• URL: https://lib.guides.umd.edu/bibliometrics

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Home > JCWS

Journal of Creative Writing Studies is a peer reviewed, open access journal. We publish research that examines the teaching, practice, theory, and history of creative writing. This scholarship makes use of theories and methodologies from a variety of disciplines. We believe knowledge is best constructed in an open conversation among diverse voices and multiple perspectives. Therefore, our editors actively seek to include work from marginalized and underrepresented scholars. Journal of Creative Writing Studies is dedicated to the idea that humanities research ought to be accessible and available to all.

Journal of Creative Writing Studies is a publication of Creative Writing Studies Organization (CWSO), which also hosts the annual Creative Writing Studies Conference .

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Changes in scientific publishing and possible impact on authors’ choice of journals

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• Published: 29 May 2024
• Volume 10 , article number  5 , ( 2024 )

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• Marco Seeber 1  

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Choosing the journal to which submit the results of a scientific work constitutes an important and challenging decision. It is especially crucial to correctly assess the reputation and prospects of the journal. This article describes and comments on the major changes that recently deeply modified the scientific publishing system and analyzes how they potentially undermine the reliability of the bibliometric indicators commonly used to assess a journal’s quality. In view of these elements, some key points are highlighted and discussed that can condition the choice of the journal. The article aims to be especially informative for future scientists navigating the complex world of the current scientific publishing system.

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Introduction

At some point in the development of a study, researchers need to decide to which journal they are going to submit the results of their work [ 1 ]. This is a delicate decision for junior scientists, although the recent, rapid evolution of the world of scientific publishing makes it difficult even for experienced researchers.

The choice of the journal serves two main purposes. The first one consists of the necessity to communicate the results to peers interested in the subject of the study. The second one aims at satisfying the need of a fair and adequate recognition for a scientific contribution.

The knowledge of the journal-based structure of scientific communication constitutes a basic compass for selecting the journal to which to submit a scientific contribution.

Horizontally, journals are diversified and specialized in specific disciplines, topics, and audiences. Vertically, journals are stratified in terms of prestige and reputation, which are supposed to be related to the novelty and validity of the research they publish [ 2 ]. In principle then, the authors of an article to be published should identify the journal based on these two dimensions, namely a journal read by scientists that can be interested in their results and with the best reputation possible.

What makes this seemingly simple decision actually complicated?

One problematic aspect is that the journal with the highest reputation may not be read by the audience that fits at best the subject of the research, or vice versa. For example, one may need to choose between a journal of medium reputation that very well meets the topic of the article and another one of better reputation, but less pertinent or more general in character. Moreover, reputation typically correlates with the rejection rate. A rejection implies revision, loss of time, and delayed publication; one should select a journal in which the article has realistic chances of being accepted, although assessing the chances of acceptance is not an easy matter.

However, the greatest challenge to choosing the appropriate journal derives from the recent evolution of the scientific publishing system. To make an accurate evaluation about the reputation of a journal and its future prospect, it is of pivotal importance to know and understand critically the basic economic mechanisms of the scientific publishing system. Major changes that unfolded in recent years not only disrupted the scientific publishing system, but also hampered the reliability and validity of the bibliometric indicators that are commonly used as proxies of journal’s reputation and quality. Their durability to future critical analysis is not so sure.

In this frame, it is relevant to consider the recent evolution of the scientific publishing market and to analyze a few data and trends, which are essential to help making an informed decision. Therefore, the next section will describe four major phases in scientific publishing business models and the relevant implications. The final section discusses criteria and good practices with respects to the choice of the journal, which is ultimately going to be a key decision for the long-term reputation of those who enter the scientific community.

Evolution in scientific publishing business models and relevant consequences

For more than a 200 years, scientific papers published in scientific journals have been a major avenue to make research results public [ 3 ]. In the more recent history of scientific publishing, we can identify four partially overlapping phases.

Print (until the mid-1990s)

In the “print phase” not only journals were printed, but all other main phases in the review and publication process were in a printed form [ 3 ]. This was a slow, costly, but also “thoughtful” process: given the burden of sending a printed article, authors tried to select the right journal with extreme care, editors selected the reviewers with similar attention, and the reviewers were strongly reluctant to refuse a review.

In this phase, the market of scientific publishing was fragmented: the largest for-profit publishers, known as the “big five,” Footnote 1 controlled about 20% of the market, and many small- and medium-size publishers were also present. The revenues of for-profit publishers derived from university and institutional libraries’ subscription fees for the right to access the journals’ content, according to the so-called subscription-based business model.

Digitalization and concentration (mid-1990s to mid-2000s)

Although many journals still propose a print version, digitalization and the internet made paper disappear in all the other phases of the review process and become less and less important even in the publication one. Digitalization and the internet progressively transformed scientific journals into digital goods, and digital goods have a cost of reproduction close to zero. This characteristic enabled larger publishers to offer many more journals to potential customers, e.g., university and institutional libraries, with any additional costs, outcompeting smaller scientific publishers and eventually acquiring them [ 4 ].

Figure  1 illustrates this cycle, a virtuous one for the largest for-profit publishers. As a result, a major wave of mergers and acquisitions has occurred since the mid-1990s, which in 10 years led to an oligopoly of the big five, controlling over 50% of the market [ 4 ].

Digitalization and the virtuous cycle for the largest for-profit publishers

Open access (mid-2000s–ongoing)

It is important to remark that the scientific publishing industry has one of the highest profit margins of any industry. In 2023, the profit margins of the largest scientific publishing companies were over 40%, which is more than the most profitable sector in the US economy, regional banking, with as a profit margin around 30% Footnote 2 [ 4 , 5 ].

Why is this sector so profitable? Consider a standard publishing company for magazines or newspapers that must pay the salary of the staff producing the articles and obtain revenues from readers in a competitive market and from advertisement. By comparison, scientific publishers do not pay the scientists writing the articles, acting also as editors and reviewers, while obtaining revenues from subscription fees and/or the authors’ publication fees (i.e., “APC” fee, see next). Profitability is also guaranteed by the fact that most journals often benefit from limited competition by occupying a specific niche and rank that provides a semi-monopolistic position. Figure  2 illustrates the business models in standard and scientific publishing.

Comparison of business models in standard and scientific publishing

The huge profits of the industry at the expense of the public purse provoked the outrage of librarians and academics since the late nineties [ 6 ]. Hence, while digitalization and the internet favored a virtuous cycle for the large publishers, they also enabled and encouraged the emergence of an open-science movement aiming at reducing barriers to knowledge through free access to scientific publications.

The growth of open access (OA) publishing has been staggering, and nowadays most articles are published as OA [ 7 ]. However, the label “open access” defines very different models. On the one hand, the open access movement pursued so-called green and diamond OA, which imply no fees for readers nor authors; on the other hand, the most successful models are by far gold and hybrid OA, which demand expensive fees paid by authors, according to the so-called author processing charge (APC) business model, sarcastically nicknamed the “author pays the cost” model. Figure  3 illustrates the different types of OA, according to four key traits, namely depending on the fact that (i) the content is free for authors and/or for readers, (ii) the articles undergo a peer review process, (ii) the authors retain the copyright, (iv) the authors do not retain the copyright.

Source: adapted from [ 8 ]

Open access model characteristics: one term for very different systems.

Even within the gold open access model we can identify different types of scientific publishers, as illustrated in Fig.  4 . Recently established scientific publishers most often obtain revenues exclusively through the gold OA model, including nonprofit publishers, such as the Public Library of Science, which edits PLOS One , and for-profit publishers such as MDPI and Frontiers. Instead, traditional publishers, including large for-profit publishers as well as nonprofit publishers owned by a learned society, Footnote 3 adopt the gold OA model as a complement to the subscription fees (so-called hybrid model), which may lead to the so-called double dipping problem, when the public purse must pay the publisher twice for the same article: via subscription and via open access fees.

Gold open access: for-profit and nonprofit publishers

Diversification (mid-2010s–ongoing)

More recently, several parallel processes have been observed.

A worrisome trend lies in the staggering growth of predatory journals and paper mills. Predatory journals follow the APC business model, requiring fees from authors, but do not conduct an adequate peer review or any peer review process at all [ 9 ]. The identification of predatory journals is not always straightforward, as they try to conceal their real nature behind a curtain of apparently legitimate practices [ 10 ], and they do that so effectively that even curated databases have been recently infiltrated [ 11 ].

Another threatening phenomenon consists of paper mills: companies that “fabricate” scientific articles and sell co-authorship once the articles have been accepted for publications [ 12 ]. A recent study examined the field of biomedicine and estimated that out of 1.3 million biomedical publications listed in Scimago in 2020, more than 300,000 were likely fake and that the percentage of fake articles from Russia, Turkey, China, Egypt, and India, was between 39% and 48% [ 13 ].

The most recent notable process in scientific publishing consists of Transformative Agreements (TA). In 2015, a white paper of the Max Planck Society argued that: “the money already invested in the research publishing system is sufficient to enable a transformation [to open access publishing] that will be sustainable for the future” [ 14 ]. Transformative agreements aim at tackling two main problems in scientific publishing—rising subscription fees to read the scholarly literature and rising APC fees to publish in the scholarly literature—by moving publishing away from subscription payments, toward fully open access publishing. TA is an umbrella term encompassing several kinds of contracts between institutional consortia and publishers that may include traditional subscription licenses and APC discounts or waivers covering a certain number of articles in hybrid or fully open journals. The major initial supporters of TA were the Max Planck Digital Library and cOAlition S , a consortium of national research agencies and funders from 12 European countries promoting OA publishing. The number of TAs has grown fast since the mid-2010s, especially in central and northern European countries, in part thanks to regulatory obligations to do so, such those enforced by cOAlition S . So far, however, there is little evidence that TAs are truly containing costs. A report to the US Congress critically assessed TA for accepting and strengthening the current costly and opaque market for journal subscriptions [ 15 ], and cOAlition S dropped the support to TA beyond 2024, concerned that sustained support would make this agreement a permanent fixture and risk of replicating the same trends that it was designed to alleviate. In addition, since much time and effort are needed for negotiation, many argued that TAs favor larger publishers, by pushing small publishers to partner with larger ones, and authors to publish on journals covered by these agreements.

Business models and their implications

At this point, it is important to highlight some key characteristics of the two main business models in the scientific publishing industry, and how these characteristics affect the behavior of authors, publishers, and journals’ editors.

In the traditional “subscription-based” business model, the revenues of the publishers derive from subscription fees paid by public librarie—typically university and institutional libraries. In this model the customer is the reader, and the reader’s goal is to access high-quality content. Therefore, if the publishers aim at increasing profits, they need to promote the quality of the journals. On their side, the editors of the journals are scientists, whose goal is to maximize their prestige and reputation, and they can achieve these goals by curating the quality of the content. In turn, this model creates an alignment of incentives towards quality and common interest in rigorous, selective peer review.

In the APC model, the revenues derive from authors who publish articles: in a way, the customer is the author itself. The authors’ goal is to publish, and the publishers’ profits depend on the volume of articles published: they both have a common interest in publishing articles in large numbers and in shortest times.

The different goals and interests for authors, editors, and publishers in the two business models is reflected in the journals’ acceptance rate, the turnaround time, i.e., the time elapsed from the submission of an article to its acceptance, special issues policies, and the journals’ growth rates. For example, the acceptance rate of journals owned from MDPI, the largest APC for-profit publisher, is two to three times higher than the acceptance rate of traditional publishers [ 16 ]. There are huge differences also regarding the turnaround time. Peer review is a time-consuming process, and the turnaround time in 2022 was estimated between 134 and 198 days on average for journals from the major traditional publishers and nonprofit OA publishers, which all experienced longer and longer turnaround times in recent years—among others, because of the increasing challenges in finding reviewers [ 17 ]. The picture is very different for journals owned by APC for-profit publishers, which display increasingly faster turnaround time, as evaluated for MDPI (37 days), Frontiers (72 days), and Hindawi (83 days) [ 16 ].

A major difference is also observed in the proportion of articles published via standard or special issues. Peer review in special issues can adhere to strict standards, and involve independent reviewers selected by the journal editors. In other cases, the peer review is managed by the guest editors, namely the scientists that promote the Special Issue, invite contributors, and very often publish themselves one or more articles in the Special Issue. In this latter situation, the special issues have pros and cons. On the one hand, from the journals’ point of view they kill two birds with one stone: they attract new submissions and reduce the costs by delegating the management of the peer review process to the guest editors. On the other hand, because of some intrinsic endogamy in the process, the peer review is often not so independent and rigorous as it is for standard submissions, thus entailing the risk of accepting below-average contributions. The extent of the use of special issues differs deeply among publishers, and in a way consistent with the respective goals. Special issue articles represent only a tiny fraction, namely below 5%, of the publications for traditional and nonprofit OA publishers’ journals. On the contrary, special issue publications represent the vast majority for the major for-profit APC publishers, in the order of 70–80% [ 16 ]. For example, in 2023, the International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Sustainability, i.e., the two largest MDPI journals, published each more than 3000 special issues, which means more than 9 per day. Footnote 4 Because of similar practices and traits, it is a debated question whether MDPI can be even considered as a predatory publisher [ 18 ].

Perhaps, the most remarkable difference between the two categories of journals consists in the different growth rates displayed in recent years, namely in the exponential growth of APC publishers compared with stable or slow growing trends for the other publishers. For example, MDPI grew from 17,000 publications in 2015 to 263,000 publications in 2022, becoming the second largest for-profit publisher in the world, surpassing Springer and second only to Elsevier. Such staggering growth is best illustrated by the complete reshuffling of the largest scientific journals that occurred in few years.

Figure  5 compares the 15 largest scientific journals by number of articles publishers in a year, respectively in 2010 and in 2022. In 2010, two of them (gray histograms in the figure) were nonprofit OA journals, including PLOS One , the most prolific journal, with 6700 articles published that year; the other 13 journals were subscription-based journals, 11 of which were owned by a learned society (striped histograms), and two by a for-profit publisher (black histograms). In 2022, all the 15 largest journals published more articles than the largest journal in 2010. All but three were gold open access journals controlled by for-profit publishers, of which ten were from fast growing APC publishers: MPDI (eight) and Frontiers (two).

Largest journals by number of articles published in 2010 and 2022—Source: Scopus-Scimago. Gray: nonprofit OA; striped: learned society, nonprofit, subscription/hybrid; black: for-profit subscription/hybrid; white: for-profit APC

A similar reshuffling has been observed also in the specific field of chemistry Footnote 5 : in 2010, all the journals were controlled by publishers following a subscription-based business model, ten of them being owned by learned societies, including the largest one—Acta Crystallographica Section E, with 4000 articles—and five being from for-profit subscription-based publishers. In 2022, only three journals are controlled by learned societies, and 12 from for-profit publishers; the three largest journals Footnote 6 were all controlled by MDPI, and published, respectively, 16,000 10,000 and 9000 articles.

There is, of course, a tension between the goals of an APC for-profit publisher, whose profit depends on the quantity of articles published, and the scientific editors, who aim at improving their own reputation via quality and selectivity. Moreover, while the subscription-based business model guarantees a stable source of revenues, regardless of the publishing volumes, the APC business model requires journals to maintain large publishing volumes. Hence, editors pursuing quality via selectivity hinder the publishers’ goals, so that in for-profit APC journals the editors are often less experienced academics, or even nonacademics.

In turn, the for-profit APC model seems to fit well Christensen’s definition of disruptive innovations, namely innovations that make it much simpler and affordable to own and use a product for people who, historically, did not have the skills to be in the market [ 19 , 20 ]. Footnote 7 In this case, people that were not skilled enough to publish in the traditional system, now can, by paying… Disruptive innovations typically start in marginal market segments, so that dominant organizations need time before being able to realize how important they are [ 19 ]. But in this case, they eventually did, as APC turned to be a much more profitable business model than subscriptions fees, becoming increasingly popular also among traditional publishers [ 21 ].

Signals to consider when selecting a journal

Going back to the key point of the present contribution, we should carefully select journals with a good reputation and that will not lose their reputation at any time. What signals of quality, reputation, and rigorous ethical standards should we then be aware of? And are there any alarm bells of dubious practices?

Determining a journal’s quality is not simple. First, whereas the reputation of a scientific journal used to be correlated with its age, i.e., the older the better reputed, in recent years prestigious publishers have established new journals at increasing pace. These journals convey contrasting reputational signals: a prestigious brand combined with a young age. Second, and arguably most importantly, bibliometric indicators—which are commonly used to determine a journal quality—have several pitfalls and are vulnerable to manipulation. Bibliometrics indicators are based on citations received by the articles of a journals; citations are considered a signal of an article’s importance and quality, i.e., a proxy of scientific impact. Especially in natural aciences, the journal impact factor (IF) is used to estimate the quality and prestige of a journal. The IF measures the average number of citations received by the articles published in the last 2 years (or 5 years, for the IF at 5 years). However, the IF has several limitations. Most importantly, it weights every citation in the same way, and does not take into consideration the characteristics of who is citing. This may be problematic in several regards. For example, it has been debated whether indicators of scientific impact should consider self-citations, namely citations received from articles of the same journals. Clarivate—the company that owns and manage the Web of Science , the most known dataset of scientific publications—does include journal self-citations for the computation of the journal impact factor (JIF). On the contrary, Scopus, arguably the second most known dataset of scientific publications, controlled by Elsevier—does not consider self-citations for the calculation of the Scimago journal rank (SJR). Scientific journals vary remarkably in the share of self-citations, which can make a big difference. For example, considering the top 20 citing journals of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, the largest journal in chemistry, 32.5% were self-citations; for the Journal of the American Chemical Society it was 12.4%. Footnote 8 The IF also does not take into account which other journals are the main source of citations; for example, considering the top-20 citing journals, 70% of the citations for the International Journal of Molecular Sciences were received from the journal itself or other journals from the same publisher (MDPI) and the rest from journals of the other major APC for-profit publisher, i.e., Frontiers.

In general, indicators of impact can be manipulated in many ways [ 22 ], and in recent years Clarivate delisted many journals from the science citation index due to suspicious practices, so that the IF of these journals is not reported anymore. Footnote 9 Therefore, when assessing a journal’s impact, scientists should preferably use indicators that do not consider self-citations, and check whether the share of self-citations and citations from journals of the same publisher are much higher compared to other journals in the same area.

Authors should also be wary of journals displaying some unusual traits, namely when they combine the two desirable properties of high acceptance rate and high values in indicators of impact, and when they display extreme growth rates. There is in fact a delicate balance between a journal reputation, the number of submissions it receives, and the level of selectivity: better reputation attracts more submissions, but the editors must be highly selective to maintain a good quality journal. Hence, it is very unlikely that a journal can couple good quality to low selectivity. A massive growth in the number of articles published by a journal in few years may also be a source of doubt about its rigor, because the mentioned delicate balance constitutes a constraint to the journal’ growth rate.

Signals of independence in the peer review process are also important. Special issues in many journals are not managed by the editors but by guest editors, which are often authors of one or more articles of the special issue and where co-authors often come from their own network. Hence, a high proportion of special issues can be considered a warning signal. In a similar way, one may keep an eye on whether the editors and the members of the editorial board publish frequently in the journal, and/or whether there are “serial” authors, i.e., authors publishing many articles a year, a large proportion of publications from the same country or institution(s), or from countries hosting paper mills.

As a final consideration, it is important to consider that our individual choices are not only relevant for our own career and recognition, but they also collectively shape scientific communication and science itself. Hopefully, an understanding of the mechanisms that are reshaping scientific publishing can inform better individual choices capable to promote the common scientific interest.

Data availability

The data are available upon request.

Elsevier, Springer–Nature, Taylor & Francis, Wiley–Blackwell, Sage.

Sources: Most profitable sectors in the USA: Statistica. https://www.statista.com/statistics/317657/most-profitable-industries-us/ accessed 1 April 2024; it is interesting to note that a 40% profit margin is also four times that of the very profitable arms industries, such as Lockheed Martin— https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/LMT/lockheed-martin/net-profit-margin .

Learned societies (also known as scientific societies) are nonprofit organizations or associations that promote a scientific discipline or a group of scientific disciplines, such as the American Chemical Society or the Academy of Management . They often own scientific journals, although they may not always manage the publishing activity themselves but delegate to companies offering the most convenient arrangement.

See: https://x.com/PaoloCrosetto/status/1370309130578186242?s=20

Source: Scopus–Scimago.

International Journal of Molecular Sciences; Sensors; Molecules.

Renowned examples of disruptive innovations are digital cameras disrupting film cameras and tabletop copiers disrupting photocopy centers.

Source: Web of Science, for these and later figures.

See: Clarivate, https://clarivate.com/blog/supporting-integrity-of-the-scholarly-record-our-commitment-to-curation-and-selectivity-in-the-web-of-science/

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Department of Political Science and Management, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

Marco Seeber

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Seeber, M. Changes in scientific publishing and possible impact on authors’ choice of journals. ChemTexts 10 , 5 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40828-024-00190-3

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Received : 02 April 2024

Accepted : 08 April 2024

Published : 29 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40828-024-00190-3

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