Skip to Main Content
Nova southeastern University logo Martin and Gail Press Health Professions Division Library Logo

Resources for publishing: Assessing Journal Quality

Use the following websites to help select reputable scholarly journals OR to further evaluate journals for the purpose of publishing your work:

Research the Journal 
Other websites to check journal quality

 

Be Aware:

 

  • Many journals do not have an Impact Factor.
  • The Impact Factor cannot assess the quality of individual articles. Even if citations were evenly distributed among articles, the Impact Factor would only measure the interests of other researchers in an article, not its importance or usefulness.
  • Only research articles, technical notes, and reviews are "citable" items. Editorials, letters, news items, and meeting abstracts are not always citable. 
  • Only a small percentage of articles are highly cited and they are found in a small subset of journals. This small proportion accounts for a large percentage of citations.
  • Controversial papers, such as those based on fraudulent data, may be highly cited, distorting the Impact Factor of a journal.
  • Citation bias may exist. For example, English language resources may be favored or authors may cite their own work.

Journal Evaluation Tool (PDF)