Research

Some things to consider:

• What are my goals in getting published? Glory (aim for prestigious journals) or Changing practice (maybe publish in a practitioner journal or organise workshops?)
• What is your target audience? What would that audience expect in terms of quality of evidence etc?
• What does my ethics approval cover? 
• What can be shared while the research is ongoing? Maybe you can present at conferences and get peer feedback in an early stage of your research?

This article gives some really practical advice about overcoming the main hurdles to getting an article accepted:
How to get published in an academic journal: top tips from editors (2015) The Guardian.  Available from: 
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/03/how-to-get-published-in-an-academic-journal-top-tips-from-editors 

There is also useful information available from academic libraries - see for example these guides from the University of Sydney and the University of Tasmania

You need to consider:

• Is it relevant to the topic of your research? Maybe note relevant journal titles during your literature searching?
• Who is the intended audience? If you are aiming to reach a particular audience you want to be published in a journal they are likely to read
• Is it peer-reviewed?  Peer-reviewed journals are considered more scholarly and better quality and you will have feedback from reviewers to improve your article. However it might be easier to get published in a less formal professional publication which could be read regularly by your target audience. 
• What is the impact factor? The impact factor of a journal is the number of citations of articles published divided by the number of articles. Highly cited journals are more prestigious. See more...
• How hard is it to get into?  You may want to aim higher than you realistically expect for your first attempt.
• How long will you have to wait? It can take many months and some journals are particularly slow. You cannot send your article to more than one journal at a time. If your topic is time sensitive you should choose a journal with a quicker turnaround. Journals usually provide time to publication estimates and you can withdraw your article if it is taking too long.
• Open access?  Open access means there is no payment barrier to access journal articles and they are more likely to be read. Some journals ask authors to pay to defray open access costs. Some funding bodies require that research is published in open access format. See: Directory of Open Access Journals.

IMPORTANT: Check the journal's information for authors page for information such as the scope of the journal, any research topics of particular interest to the editors, required word length and referencing style.

Think about:

• What journals do you read?
• What are the relevant professional organisations?
• Where are relevant articles being published? Use Medline, Google Scholar and other databases
• Look on the websites of big publishers such as Taylor & Francis (CRC Press) or Elsevier
• Check out our journal subscriptions: 
  Auburn and Westmead Hospital Library resources
  Blacktown and Mt Druitt Hospital Library resources
  Cumberland Hospital Library resources
• If you have a University affiliation you would also be able to check Ulrich's periodicals directory, Web of Science and Scopus