The submission, editing, and acceptance of any paper can be the most frustrating and time-consuming part of process. The following is a list of suggestions to assist in finding the right journal and getting your submission accepted.

• Prior to writing any type of article, have a journal in mind.
  • ​What are the scope and aims of the journal?  Will it fit your article?
  • Check the journal's impact factor and where it is indexed. An impact factor relates to how often articles in a journal are cited. Newer journals will not have impact factors.  Journals indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE and other major databases will be more likely to be peer-reviewed and reliable.
  • Read the journal requirements for publication to be sure your article type will qualify, also keep writing requirements and length in mind as you write.
  • Pull 2-3 articles from the journals that are done in a style similar to what you are planning on writing, this will give you a guide to how the journal has its articles organized.
  • Remember: The better the journal, the more submissions it will receive and the higher its rejection rate.  You may not publish your first article in the New England Journal of Medicine, but keep trying.
• ​Most journals will now require electronic submission, so you will need to have all your documents ready and in the correct file format before beginning the submission process.
• Submit to only one journal at a time. Ethically, you cannot use the same data in two articles and you should not be wasting the time of reviewers by submitting your article to similar journals.  Peer-reviewers will often review articles for multiple journals. If your article is noted to be double-submitted, you could lose the chance to submit to the journal again.
• After submission, you will get a response back from the journal editor.  Below are examples of the types of response you may receive from the journal editor:
  • Acceptance with minor revisions:  article had some minor mistakes that can easily be corrected.
  • Acceptance with major revisions:  article had a good topic, but either the writing or data may have errors.
  • Rejection after peer review:  peer reviewers may reject the article for various reasons.  Review their feedback critically and use it to improve your paper for the next submission.
  • Rejection before peer review: editors reject articles which do not fit the journal scope, or which do not follow the journal standards for submission.

If you are completing a case series, a case report containing information from 4 or more patients, you will need to submit a human subjects research form through CLARA for an IRB review.  More information on CLARA and the IRB can be found in the Research section of this guide.

A very complete listing of journals accepting case reports as well as advice on how to choose a journal is provided in the article below:

How to choose the best journal for your case report

In general:

• Ask senior and/or published clinicians in your field for suggested journals.
• Do an online review of possible journals, or contact your library to assist with this, or look at the list included in the article above.
• Once you have found a journal, review the requirements. Many newer case report journals are based on the open-access model.  This means your article will be freely available to all, but you will need to pay for publication. If this is not a problem, do a further review of the publisher. 
  • Is the journal peer-reviewed? 
  • Can you navigate the publisher site to easily find what you need? 
  • Is the site complete? 
  • Is the journal indexed in PubMed? 
  • What is the impact factor? (New journals will not have one)
  • What are the costs? 

If in doubt, contact the library for a review of the journal before submitting.​

Possible Journal Options: While this is not exhaustive, it is a good listing of possible journals that accept case reports in a number of fields:

• General listing: http://libguides.gwumc.edu/casereports