The Journal Submission Kit

What's inside

1. Know your paper — Pin down the contribution, article type, audience and the tier you are realistically aiming for.
2. Build a candidate list — Run a discovery sweep and cut it to a shortlist of five to eight journals.
3. Aims & scope gate — Check each journal's stated scope against your paper before you invest more time (one copy per journal).
4. Journal-fit scoring matrix — Score the survivors on scope, audience, standing, cost and speed, then record metrics, indexing and measured speed.
5. Screen for legitimacy — Work through a screening method for editorial practice, indexing claims and fees (one copy per journal).
6. Open access, fees & rights — Work out the fee, waivers, agreements and the licence you are signing up to.
7. Comply with author guidelines — Tick off formatting, word limits, references, figures and required statements (one copy per journal).
8. Assemble the submission package — Collect every file, statement, reviewer suggestion and metadata item before you open the portal.
9. Cover letter builder — Draft a cover letter that says why the paper fits this journal (one copy per journal).
10. Submit & track — Log the submission, the stated timeline and the next date to follow up.
11. Route the decision — Decide the next move for accept, revise, reject-and-resubmit or transfer offers.

Swipe cards for fit scoring, warning signs, required statements and a cover-letter skeleton.

The Submission Tracker (Excel / Google Sheets)

• Start Here: how the workbook fits together
• Fit Matrix: 1–5 scores, weights, weighted total and rank
• Package: required and ready lists with a GO / NO-GO line
• Tracker: days waiting, days to deadline, a stated-timeline alert and the next action
• Decisions: what to do after each type of decision

Look inside

Low-resolution, watermarked previews of four of the 17 pages.

Built around Journal Clock

Step 4 uses measured acceptance times like the ones on every Journal Clock journal page. Steps 3, 5 and 7 are exactly what to check before you submit to the journal you just looked up.

Who it's for

• PhD students, master's students and postdocs submitting a paper to a journal.
• Anyone choosing between journals who wants a repeatable way to decide and a complete package on the first try.

It is not a writing, editing or statistics service, and it does not submit anything for you.

From the author

Companion to The Journal Selection & Submission Workbook (Mastering Research Series), by Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhD.

Licence and refunds

One purchaser, personal academic use: print and annotate freely; please don't share, resell or upload the files to shared drives or course sites. Refund on request within 14 days if the files cannot be downloaded or opened. Full terms.

Lost your link?

Enter the email address you used at checkout and we'll email a fresh download link.