Research Journals, literacy, levels to consider when publishing or perusing

Research Journals for publication or perusing
Keywords:  research literacy, publishing, research journals, peer-reviewing research, reading research, research review

Topic:  Acupuncture/EAM and choosing a research journal for publication

author/editor:  Megan Kingsley Gale
Contributing authors/ideas:  Dr. Fuji McPherson, Dr. Chris Kleronomos

So, you've done your research and are finishing up the main part of the work and writing up your results.  Have you starting your list of ideal journals to submit your work to?  

Choosing a journal for publication of your work is a learned skill.  I asked a couple colleagues whom I admire for their research study designs about their advice to other EAMPs looking to publish their work.  
  

The Highest Standard

The highest standard for research journals are those that have or are the following:

1.  Peer-reviewed journals
2.  The journal’s articles/publications are indexed on PubMed/Medline[i].

3.  The journal is well-read or well-known.  And/or journal has a good reputation.

The peer-reviewed journals Science and Nature are the highest level journals to be published in for the above reasons.  The only accept original work.  They do not accept literature reviews.  However, being accepted for publication in either of those two journals is, by virtue of their reputations, challenging due to sheer competition.

Next Level

Next level of journals to publish in.  ie:  not Science or Nature

Still peer-reviewed journals
Still indexed on PubMed/NCBI.
Consider those journals that have widest distribution and are relevant to your fields (subject matter).

Examples:

Pain Practitioner
Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine (ATHM)
Integrative Medicine:  A Clinician’s Journal (IMCJ)
Journal of Nurse Practitioners

Your other area of specialty, some examples:

Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine
Journal of Nurse Practitioners
Journal of Pain Medicine
American Journal of Public Health
Family and Community Health

For example, if your work is in pediatrics, go to the main journal for pediatrics.  If you work is in sleep, go to the main journals about sleep medicine/insomnia/pulmonology/brain science.

Lowest level of professional journals to publish in:
Peer-reviewed
Not indexed in PubMed, but professional enough that it may one day be indexed.
Has a wide distribution among your peers.

Examples:

Journal of TCM (British, about 20 years of publication)
Military Medicine—publication of AMSUS, the society of federal health care practitioners.  Specific audience.  Wide distribution among that audience.

More advice in choosing a journal to submit your work:
Do a PubMed search under your subject area.  Is your type of work over-published or unique?  If it is unique, you have a greater probability of being published by more variety of journals.  If your work is more of what is already currently very common, you will have more competition in getting published.

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[i] PubMed/NCBI is the online medical research journal search engine.  If a person is researching a topic, he/she would go to PubMed and search there.  If you work is submitted to a journal that is not indexed on PubMed, the researcher (professional or amateur or average clinician) would not find it.