The Graduate School Reference Center

Writing for scientific publication is much different than writing a research paper for class. The American Psychological Association recommends that you pick your journal before you begin to write because each journal has specific style, formatting, and article requirements. Additionally, you can consult the eBooks linked below for more information on writing for publication. 

Consider the audience for your topic to help determine which journal is right for your manuscript. To assist you in locating journals related to your topic, Greenblatt Library recommends these tools:​

• Journal/Author Name Estimator (Jane): Enter the title and/or abstract of the paper in the box, and click on 'Find journals', 'Find authors' or 'Find Articles'. 

• Edanz Journal Selector: Enter your abstract or article description in the search box to find journals that publish in related areas 

• PubReMiner: Complete a search and view the journals that published the most articles related to your search terms

• Journal Citation Reports: Search for journals by subject and find the highest impact factor journals for that field

• Directory of Open Access Journals: an online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals

Copyright Transfer Agreements

Do you intend to use your article in your thesis or dissertation? Most journals require that you sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement, which is a legal document that guides the ownership of the content in the article. Most publishers require that all copyrights are transferred to the journal, and thus, require a license and have specific guidelines on how the content is reproduced in a thesis/dissertation. For example:

• Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing: “Wolters Kluwer does not provide copyright permission approval for full text articles to be reused in dissertations unless you are the author of the original article. This reuse is free of charge. No permission letter is needed from Wolters Kluwer Health, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. We require that all authors always include a full acknowledgement. Example: AIDS: 13 November 2013 - Volume 27 - Issue 17 - p 2679-2689. Wolters Kluwer Health Lippincott Williams & Wilkins© No modifications will be permitted.”
• The American Physical Society's website states that authors who publish in their journals have "the right to use the article or a portion of their article in a thesis or dissertation without requesting permission from APS, provided the bibliographic citation and the APS copyright credit line are given on the appropriate pages."
• Molecular and Cellular Biology’s website states that all “ASM authors retain the right to reuse the full article in his/her dissertation or thesis.”  

Consult MIT Libraries' Office of Scholarly Publishing, Copyright & Licensing's list of Publisher Policies to learn about specific publisher's guidelines on the reuse of article content in a thesis/dissertation. If a publisher is not listed, contact Sandra Bandy, at sbandy@augusta.edu or 706-721-0299, for assistance.

One may make fair use of a copyrighted work without the copyright holder’s permission. The determination of whether a use of a copyrighted work is within fair use depends upon making a reasoned and balanced application of the four fair use factors set forth in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Those factors are

• the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
• the nature of the copyrighted work;
• the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
• the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

All four factors should be evaluated in each case, and no one factor will determine the outcome. While fair use is intended to apply to teaching, research, and other such activities, an educational purpose alone does not make a use fair. The “purpose and character of the use” is only one of four factors that users must analyze in order to conclude whether or not the use is fair, and therefore lawful.

Moreover, each of the factors is subject to interpretation as courts work to apply the law. Working through the four factors is important. Simple rules and solutions may be compelling, but by understanding and applying the factors, users receive the benefits of the law’s application to the many new needs and technologies that continue to arise at member institutions within the University System of Georgia.

Understanding the Four Factors, reviews the University System of Georgia's Copyright Policy, The Fair Use Exception