Academic

General vs Specialty Journals

By Jacqueline Lipton

A couple of people commented with respect to a previous thread that they had received offers from both general and specialty journals during this submission season.  Some people also blogged about how confusing the different sets of rankings are when deciding between placements.  So to put the two streams of thought together, we get back to the question as to how to rank a good specialty journal vis-a-vis a general journal.  A colleague recently had an offer from one of the top specialty journals in a particular field and wanted to work out who to expedite to from there in terms of general journals.  If one follows the US News rankings, my rule of thumb in my own field is generally to equate a top or second top specialty journal with the rung of the US News rankings that falls somewhere between Top 35 and Top 40.  Another colleague once compared an offer from a top specialty journal in IP favorably with an offer from the Hastings Law Journal which is usually just below the middle of the first tier general journals.  Does this sound right to other people?  Does it work out in other fields or is IP sui generis in this respect?  I have heard, for example, that the specialty health journals work somewhat counter-intuitively in many respects, although I have no publishing experience in that field.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on September 02, 2009 (boomark / email).