Winning the Publications Game - 4th Edition (2016)

First set yourself a brief 31
its editor) likes their papers to look, and that information
will prove invaluable in the weeks to come.
All this is obvious. In practice the problem is: how
do you choose the target journal in the first place? (See
Figure 3.4.) There is no easy answer. The message you
wish to put across will be a useful starting point and
should narrow the field considerably.
Another consideration is what you want to get out
of publication. (Chapter 2 should have helped you with
this.) If you want fame across the profession, aim for a
general journal, such as Nature, The Lancet, the BMJ
or The New England Journal of Medicine. If you seek
promotion, go for those with the highest impact factors
(see Figure 3.5). If you want to influence a small group
of doctors only, choose the specialist journal they read.
You may wish to produce a shortlist of four or five
journals. If you still find it difficult to choose, run a literature
search. How much has each of them published
about your subject in the past few years? You will find
that journals, like their editors, show patterns of interest
or ‘threads’ – preferences for dealing with certain topics
and shunning others. This piece of market research should
help you to make an informed decision, but if you still
find it hard to decide, choose a journal you read and enjoy
because, as a regular reader, you will be comfortable with
its style and approach. Knowing someone connected with
a journal can also help, not because they can pull strings
(they usually can’t and/or won’t) but because they will be
able to give you good ‘market information’.
Do not be shy of ambition. If you want (or need) to
be published in a top journal, study that journal closely.