Scholarly Journals: The Publisher

Collage of cover images of various scholarly publisher logos.

 

The publishers of scholarly journals are usually different from those publishing popular magazines. They're in the business of sharing knowledge.

Clues for Recognizing Scholarly Publishers

  1. The names of major scholarly journal publishers are well known to researchers. When you see a journal published by one of these, you can assume it is scholarly.  Examples:

    • Elsevier / Science Direct
    • Routledge, Taylor & Francis
    • Chadwyck-Healy
    • Blackwell
    • Emerald
    • Wiley
    • Springer
    • SAGE Journals
  2. A University press is generally scholarly.  Examples:
    • Oxford University Press
    • Duke University Press
    • Cambridge University Press
    • University of California Press
    • University of Toronto Press
  3. Some scholarly organizations publish journals, and their journals are scholarly and usually well-respected in the subject area. Examples:
    • APA (American Psychological Association)
    • American Anthropological Association
    • Institute of Physics
    • National Research Council of Canada
    • Royal Society of Chemistry

If you aren't sure who publishes a hard-copy journal, look at the first few pages for this information. If it's an online journal, look at the name of the website it comes from, or find a link to "About the journal".

 

Next: Peer-Review.