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Choosing a Journal

Strategies and tools for investigating and evaluating your options

Special Issues

Within all these journal categories, there is the option of publishing your research in a special issue, which is just that: a special issue of an existing journal that focuses more narrowly on a particular topic or issue but is still within a journal's original scope. These come about in a couple of different ways: on the steam of the scholarly journal itself or by a researcher who pitches the idea for one but is outside the journal's editorial team. The timeline for pitching an idea and being approved, commissioning writers, collecting articles, and publishing a special issue also differs from traditional issues.

There are several benefits to publishing in a special issue: as with any publishing opportunity, there is increased visibility of your research, especially work that might not otherwise fit the traditional mode or that takes a deeper dive into an area that is less covered; faster publication times, given the different timeline for special issues; and the likelihood that your work will be more frequently city - "Special content articles attract 20% more citations in the first 24 months than articles published in regular issues" (per Scopus and ScienceDirect).