Best Science Journals

Best Science Journals

Being science the main area of journal publication in the world, numerous science journals were founded in the last decades. Most of them still exist and researchers can publish in them but, do they want to? What do researchers want from a journal to publish in it? Any researcher will want people to read their publications so they can get as many citations as possible. Being that so, how do researchers choose where to publish? They will want to know how many people read every journal and how many citations could they collect. That is why impact factors exist. These are designed to stablish the importance of a journal in each category. 

SJR (Scimago Journal Rank) is a very common impact factor to look at when a researcher wants to decide which are the best journals to send their papers to. This ranking was created in 1996 to calculate scientific publications impact from Scopus data, being a free and open access index so anyone can look in their ranking and search for journals in there. Our objective today is to present the 3 best science journals in 2018 according to SJR.

As you all can see, the best plant science journal would be CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians if we guide ourselves by SJR ranking. This is the flagship journal of the American Cancer Society, published by Wiley-Blackwell, and its content is directed to oncology specialists and other professionals who interact with cancer patients. Most Wiley’s journals charge a publication fee to authors or institutions to publish in their hybrid open access option, costing 3000€ so everybody can read their publication for free. Is it right to pay this cost so everyone can read science journals for free? Let’s keep reading for now.

Second position in SJR ranking is for Recommendations and reports: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published every week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their objective is to publish public health information that they receive from state health departments in the US. All their material is in public domain, so anyone can consult their recommendations and even reprint it without permission. This type of journal would be the perfect example of free publishing for the benefit of science and public health.

Last but not least, we find Nature Reviews Materials in third position. Published by Nature Publishing Group, this is an online-only journal that weekly publish new reviews in all scientific disciplines. This journal is subscription-based, a third type of journal to know, in which publication costs are assigned to readers, who must subscribe to read their publications or buy them individually. It doesn’t have to mean that publishing is easier for authors, as they must pass a peer-review process before knowing if their paper will be accepted to publish.

As you can see, there are multiple types of journal with their different publication methods. Some journals apply publication fees and some are subscription-based so readers must accept the cost. We can even find some journals completely free for public benefit but these are usually state subsidized. So almost always, the publication cost must be assumed by someone. We will talk in further posts about the cost of science. In the meantime, you can keep consulting journals information in CountryOfPapers.