Mathematics

If you're an early career mathematician (perhaps a grad student or postdoc), one of your challenges may be figuring out where to submit a paper for publication. While there are tools that can help, your first step will generally be talking to people: your advisor, a mentor, or others working in your subfield.

Beyond general advice for likely target journals, these folks may be also able to identify journals who have editors with the experience to evaluate your specific topic.

Once you've talked to trusted humans, it's also good to research the journals you're interested in submitted to.

• Is it a legitimate journal/publisher?
• How "good" is it?
• Does my paper fit this journal?
• Where are the articles in my subfield typically published?
• Is it open access, hybrid, or a subscription journal?
  • If subscription, how much does it cost?
• What are the author rights?

To figure out if a journal is a legitimate one, there are a number of steps you can take.

• Is it indexed in MathSciNet or Web of Science? If yes, you can be pretty confident this is a legitimate journal and can move on to considering if it's the right journal for your work.
• If it's an open access journal, is it listed in DOAJ? If yes, it is more likely to be legitimate.
• If it's not indexed in MathSciNet or Web of Science and isn't in DOAJ, you're going to need to do more in-depth research and/or talk to Kristin
  • Google the journal title and publisher name. Do you find search results of people complaining that the journal is a scam?
  • Is it a new journal that just isn't indexed yet? If so, can you find mathematicians talking about this new journal? (For example, this announcement of the launch of Combinatorial Theory)
  • Read through past articles they've published that are in a field you know. Do they seem credible?
  • Is there a fee required to submit, rather than one once your paper has been accepted? Are APCs clearly laid out in their author instructions?
  • Did you receive an invitation from someone you don't know asking you to submit a paper? Be skeptical an do more research.