How to make scientific journals known

We can’t expect a scientific journal to become famous without making any efforts; even if it has a high quality. There are some procedures for making a scientific journal known, but before taking action, one should consider one’s resources and the required amount of time. In order to fulfill this aim, only an accurate plan is required, which will not cost much.

First of all, the journal needs to be introduced to the new authors, since they are the ones who should send their high-quality articles to the scientific journal. Furthermore, authors and readers comprise a part of the audience of the scientific journals, so by making a journal known to readers, it will find more authors.

In scheduling advertisements, chief editor must have a clear and specific idea of its audience and target community. Defining a target community can save the chief editor from wasting his /her energy on the activities which might not lead to the desired goal. A scientific journal can be made known through the procedures that are listed below:

• Cooperating with the authors and playing an active role to improve the quality of the articles which can be done by effective review reports, holding educative workshops or publishing educative brochures about writing essays and reviews
• Preparing brief, clear and desirable instructions to guide the authors
• Defining and maintaining publication standards which can be done through using professional and educated staff, literary editors, methodologic counselors, and scientific journal reviewers
• Developing an electronic method for sending the articles and grouping systems that help the authors to increase the quality of their articles, the reviewers to review the articles more precisely and the editors in chief to supervise the scientific journal processes
• Defining and providing high-standard editing which consists of peer review, deciding rapidly about articles’ manuscripts and confirming the quality of articles before publication
• Trying to make the journal articles more accessible to the readers. Printed and electronic scientific journals that are distributed on time, exist in the libraries and are indexed in internationally credible databases have a greater chance to be accessible to their audience.

A scientific journal can become more popular among readers and authors by making use of methods that are listed below:

• Cooperating with other scientific journals by exchanging instructions, editors, or reviewers
• Cooperating with other scientific journals by exchanging the articles’ abstract and sending free printed copies of them
• Making efficient use of the editorial board in order to introduce the scientific journal in conferences and congresses
• Introducing the scientific journal in congresses and scientific conferences through brochures
• Participating in scientific lectures and conferences
• Requesting the members of the editorial board to mention their position in the scientific journal in the block signature of their e-mail
• Cooperating with professional publishers as much as possible
• Indexing the scientific journal in international databases.
• Contracting with scientific journal distributors in developing researching and scientific centers.
• Exchanging advertisements with other scientific journals.
• Requesting to cooperate with another scientific journal based on the topic of one issue.
• Sending e-mails to the target community to inform them about the latest issue.
• Preparing an e-mail containing the articles’ table of content.

Establishing laws and instructions for making the scientific journal known causes the journal to be accessed by many members of the target community. As it was mentioned before, defining this target community is very significant. Some examples of the target community are listed below:

• Researchers
• Research centers
• Decisive government agencies
• Librarians
• Scientific associations
• Other scientific journals
• Companies
• Hospitals
• Faculty members and graduate students

Below is a list of effective ways through which a scientific journal can be made known to its audience:

• Printed scientific journal subscription
• Supplementary versions or new issues
• Electronic full-text articles
• Scientific journal’s website
• Preparing brochures and posters to introduce the scientific journal
• Sending e-mails containing the table of contents
• Presenting posters to scientific conferences and congresses