A Comprehensive Guide to select a Suitable Journal for Research Publication

Selection of suitable Journal for publication of research indings in a peerreviewed Journal is very critical and challenging for researchers. Selection of Journal for publication involves many factors, where the main factor is Journal metrics. In light of the proliferation of journals, some journals have come under increased scrutiny recently with terms such as questionable, illegitimate, dishonest, used to describe these journals. Generally, the young researchers or the irst-time authors, would like to publish their indings in a less reputed Journal with very less rejection rate, as theywant to publish their articles quickly. Wrong choice of journal for publishing spells outright rejection. Even if the article is very encouraging with sound and rigorous scholarly work, it will not stand the test. Another option for authors is to consult with librarians af iliated with organization or local public library. Librarians are well-suited to provide guidance in helping authorswith selecting quality journals to consider for publication. Transparency andobjectives are essential elements for scienti ic research and peer review process. Bibliographic software such as EndNote or RefWorks assist the authors to format reference section and to perform corrections suggested by reviewers. Hence, this review was delineated to provide an insight for the researchers to prefer a Journal based on the impact factor, H-index, SNIP, SJR and timeline of publication.


INTRODUCTION
The word Journal means "daily" that may refer to several things. The original meaning of Journal refers to a daily record of activities. A "journal," consists of original research articles, with conclusions mainly for the researchers and scientists, generally contributed by experts in the subject. The main focus of the researchers is to publish their research indings in a peer-reviewed Journal. Proper selection of Journal is critical and authors have to meticulously identify a suitable Journal for a manuscript; otherwise, it may lead to rejection. Wrong choice of Journal may cause rejection even if the article is interesting, encouraging with sound data and high impact work. In light of the proliferation of journals, some journals have come under increased scrutiny recently with terms such as questionable, predatory, pseudo, deceptive, unscrupulous, illegitimate, or dishonest, used to describe these journals (Beall, 2012;Lalu et al., 2017).
The condition may even worse if the paper is rejected after a lengthy peer-review process that reveals the paper is just not suitable (Carroll-Johnson, 2001). Waste of time, money, effort and motivation results in improper selection of the Journal. Generally, the articles published in a Journal can be a full-length research article or review paper or short communication.

DATA RESOURCES
Details of Journals collected from various online resources namely Scopus, Web of Science and Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (Ball and Tunger, 2006).
Scopus is the largest citation database of peerreviewed literatures viz. scienti ic Journals, books, book series and conference proceedings with over 15000 Journals, 75 millions of articles, 12 millions of author pro iles and more than 5,000 international publishers (Carroll-Johnson, 2001).
Scopus covers quality peer-reviewed literature and web sources in four major subject areas namely social sciences (32%, 9292 titles), health sciences (25%, 7468 titles), physical sciences (27%, 8102 titles) and life sciences (16%, 4883 titles). Scopus represents top and high impact publishers like Elsevier, Springer nature, Taylor and Francis and Wiley-Blackwell. It provides documents year wise, author wise, subject wise, af iliation wise and country wise so that the researchers can easily search their contents (Burnham, 2006).
Web of Science (previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a website that provides subscription-based access to multiple databases that provide comprehensive citation data for many different academic disciplines (Carroll-Johnson, 2001 (Beall, 2012).

DISCUSSION
India is one among the top 10 countries for scienti ic research, according to data released by Elsevier, a publisher of scienti ic articles and Journals. Another Survey reveals that the papers published by India are the least cited among the top countries. Elsevier's latest Research Intelligence report, which was compiled earlier this year, places India in the ifth position for scienti ic research. Scimago Journal rankings (SJR) of 2018 revealed that 44 journals from USA, 26 from UK, 27 from India and 17 from Netherlands contributed the publications in Pharmaceutical Sciences. National Institutional Ranking framework (NIRF) launched in 2015 by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India consider research publications as one of the key parameter in Institutional rankings. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal will in luence career advancement, professional reputation, and improve funding opportunities of the researchers. Academic performance Index (API) was introduced by University Grant Commission (UGC) under career advancement scheme performance-linked and increasing the accountability of the country's teachers to improve their standards. API of teaching faculty is based on the publication of their research indings in peer-reviewed Journals. University Grant Commission prescribes 15 point per publication out of 30% in peerreviewed Journal and 10 points for the Journals having ISSN and ISBN number (Tables 1 and 2, Tables 3  and 4, Table 5, Tables 6, 7 and 8 and Table 9).
Generally the young researchers or the irst-time authors, would like to publish their indings in a less reputed Journal with very less rejection rate, as they want to publish their articles quickly. This attitude of the researchers to be changed and they have to analyze the reasons for the rejection and correct the manuscript so that it can be acceptable in a peerreviewed Journal.
The major reasons for rejection of research paper in a Journal may be due to,