Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Writing guide
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thoroughly vetted by the community . |
This guide is intended to assist editors in the creation and writing of articles on
For the sake of simplicity, these publications will be referred as 'journals' in this guideline, unless otherwise noted.
Editing with a conflict of interest
If you are
Disclosing these conflicts of interest can be done as follows:
To declare | Place | On | To display... | ||
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Paid editing | {{Paid|employer=Foobar Publishing}}
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User page
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{{Connected contributor (paid)|User1=Example|U1-employer=Foobar Publishing}}
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Article talk page
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Other conflicts of interest | {{
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User page
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{{Connected contributor|User1=Example}}
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Article talk page
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For example, an employee of Foobar Publishing (from interns, to editorial board members, to a journal's editor-in-chief) would be required to disclose their connection to Foobar Publishing. Note that this also covers edits made to competitors and affiliates of the employer. Likewise, a scientist that publishes research in a journal can also have a conflict of interest since a scientist's status is often judged based on where they publish their research. This is particularly true of
Note that disclosing your conflicts of interest does not grant you a "right" to edit, or give you license to
If something is unclear, or if you are unsure of something or need help getting around, you can always ask for advice at
Step-by-step guide
Getting started
Before starting to write an article on a journal, it helps to keep a few things in mind.
- First, search for the journal's article on Wikipedia. It might already exist under a slightly different name than you were expecting.
- Second, make sure the journal is notable according to our notability guidelines, otherwise it will probably be deleted. A journal will usually be considered notable if at least one of the three following criteria are met:
- The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.
- The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources.
- The journal is historically important in its subject area.
- This makes it hard for newly established journals to get an article on Wikipedia, as they usually have not had time to become influential journals. As a rule of thumb, if a journal is indexed in high-selectivity Bird Notes is detailed in a section of our Royal Society for the Protection of Birdsarticle.
- Writing an article about a journal usually is easier if you have an issue of the journal next to you, or the journal's website loaded in your browser, or both.
- Tracking down the history of a journal can be a bit complicated. Merges, splits, renaming, etc... are sometimes mentioned on the website, but are often omitted. The National Library of Australia's catalogue is a good place to look for such information. The CODEN database is also a good place. While library catalogs can sometimes provide clues, care should be exercised as they can be outdated or contain errors.
Article name
The article should be located at the official full name of the journal (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, not PNAS) unless it is officially known in an abbreviated form (FASEB Journal, not Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal). Use
- The: If the "The" is part of the official full name, the article should be located at that name (The American Journal of Medicine, not American Journal of Medicine, but American Journal of Physics, not The American Journal of Physics).
- Subtitle: Subtitles are not part of the title. For example, use European Journal of Physics, and not European Journal of Physics: A Journal of the European Physical Society.
- "Topical" subtitles can be included in the lead section if they clarify the topic of the journal. For example, see Journal of Physics A, with Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by IOP Publishing... in its lead section, since it is not immediately obvious what the topic of the journal (especially when part of a series like Journal of Physics A/B/C/D/E/F/G each covering different topics). "Fluff" subtitles, like An International Journal or Official Organ of the International Foobar Society should be omitted entirely.
- "Topical" subtitles can be included in the
- Capitalization: Use title case (American Journal of Physics, not American journal of physics). In foreign languages, honor the native usage (e.g., Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences, not Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences – but create a redirect, see below.)
- Disambiguation: If the journal title is already used for a more important subject, add the suffix "(journal)", as in Injury (journal).
- If two or more journals of different fields have exactly the same title, add the field in suffix – in addition of the word "journal" – as in Theoria (sociology journal).
- If two or more journals of the same field have exactly the same title, the publisher's name should be added as a suffix – in addition to the word "journal" – as in Open Medicine (De Gruyter journal) and Open Medicine (John Willinsky journal).
- If two or more journals of different fields have exactly the same title, add the field in suffix – in addition of the word "journal" – as in
See below for guidance on how to deal with alternate spelling and former names.
The infobox
- Note: For professional or trade magazines, you'll want to use {{infobox magazine}} instead of {{infobox journal}}.
The first step of creating a journal article is to add the {{
The ISSN is usually listed on the journal's website, but the other identifiers such as LCCN, OCLC, CODEN will usually need to be looked up. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Resources for where to look for those.
Moving from the infobox to prose
After you're done filling the infobox, convert what you can into prose. For example, if the Journal of Foo is a peer-reviewed journal published weekly by Acme focusing on codfish reproduction and migration, founded in 1924 by John Doe, you can write something like:
- The '''''Journal of Foo''''' is a [[peer-reviewed]] [[academic journal]] which focuses on [[codfish]] [[reproduction]] and [[fish migration|migration]]. It was founded in 1924 by the Austrian biologist [[John Doe]], and is published by [[Acme Corporation|Acme]] on a weekly basis.
(Replace "academic journal" with "scientific journal" or "medical journal" if that is more appropriate.) Pretty much everything from the infobox can be included in prose, but leave out things like ISSN, OCLC identifier, website, and other "technical" information. Good descriptions of the journals can usually be found in the first few pages of the journal, or on their website, but sometimes they are overly precise and need to be "condensed".
Please reference everything you write. You can use a citation template to facilitate your task. The {{cite web}} and {{cite journal}} templates will usually prove particularly handy. If you use the same source multiple times, you can write <ref name="NAME">{{cite xxx|author=|year=|title=|url=|publisher=|accessdate=}}</ref> the first time, and <ref name="NAME"/> subsequent times (replace NAME with something you like, such as JFooWebsite). This tool can greatly facilitate filling out the templates.
Never copy-paste descriptions (or anything else) from journal websites. These cannot be trusted to be
What to include
Journal scope
The article should have a brief description of the journal's scope and fields of interest (which is different from its
Official affiliations
If the journal is affiliated with scientific societies (i.e. is their official journal), or part of an independent network of publications (such as the
Publication history
The article should have information about any of the following which apply
- Year of establishment and disestablishment
- Former title(s)
- Founding editor(s)
- Language of publication (if non-English, or in addition to English)
- Mergers and splits with other journals
- Main journal series or directly affiliated publications
- Previous and current editor(s)-in-chief (or equivalent position)
- Previous and current publisher(s)
- Previous and current frequency of publication
If only little information is available (such as just one previous title), this should be included in the lead. Otherwise, create a subheading named "History" (see Journal of the National Cancer Institute § History or Journal of Optics § History for examples).
Supplements and side publications
Some journals have supplemental issues or side publications (such as
Abstracting and indexing information
This information can often be obtained from the journal's website, or through MIAR. The information is generally best presented in its own subsection titled "Abstracting and indexing". List any selective or topical databases. These are crucial to establish that the journal passes our
- The journal is [[abstracting and indexing|abstracted and indexed]] in the [[Social Sciences Citation Index]], [[Current Contents]]/Social & Behavioral Sciences, and [[Scopus]].
Selective or topical database mean things like the
should be omitted.Finish the section with the journal's impact factor as given in the Journal Citation Reports. Do not give a list of past impact factors, but only the most recent one (the below text can be directly copied and pasted into the article with the missing information filled in):
- According to the ''[[Journal Citation Reports]]'', the journal has a 2020 [[impact factor]] of x.xxx.<ref name=WoS>{{cite book |year=2021 |chapter=JOURNALNAME |title=2020 [[Journal Citation Reports]] |publisher=[[Clarivate]] |edition=Science |series=[[Web of Science]]}}</ref>
Preferably, include the ranking information provided by the Journal Citation Reports. In this case, use this text instead:
- According to the ''[[Journal Citation Reports]]'', the journal has a 2020 [[impact factor]] of x.xxx, ranking it xxth out of xxx journals in the category "CATEGORY".<ref name=WoS>{{cite book |year=2021 |chapter=Journals Ranked by Impact: CATEGORYNAME |title=2020 [[Journal Citation Reports]] |publisher=[[Clarivate]] |edition=Science |series=[[Web of Science]]}}</ref>
It is acceptable to take this information from the journal publisher's website and use the above references as a source, even if you don't have access to the Journal Citation Reports yourself.
Landmark papers
If the journal has published particularly famous papers (e.g. papers that are notable enough to warrant their own Wikipedia article), like the
Further reading
Retrospective articles about the history of a journal, or news items/web pages/books detailing specific milestones, are particularly desirable additions to our articles. If you know of such sources, include them in a 'Further reading' section. While they are rarely
- Asghar Abbas; Syed Asim Ali (10 July 2015). Print Culture: Sir Syed's Aligarh Institute Gazette 1866-1897. Primus Books. ISBN 978-93-84082-29-1.
- Wheeler, CE (January 1985). "The American Journal of Nursing and the socialization of a profession, 1900-1920". Advances in Nursing Science. 7 (2): 20–34. S2CID 12462549.
- "Physical Review Letters Celebrates 50 Years". Physical Review Letters. 13 February 2014.
would add a lot of value to the relevant articles (Aligarh Institute Gazette, American Journal of Nursing, and Physical Review Letters, respectively).
What not to include
Aims, mission statements, readership
A journal of oncology can be assumed to have the goals of furthering research in oncology and related fields, as well as be aimed towards oncologists and related professions. If you correctly described the scope of the journal, e.g. "Journal of Foobar is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of oncology with a focus on chemo- and radiotheraphy methods.", then the aims of the journal and its readership will be obvious.
List of authors and full editorial boards
Journals often like to list well-known or prestigious academics, or to include them on their editorial board to add to their reputation. While journals are free to do whatever they want on their websites, authors have little impact on the daily operations of the journal, as do most of the editorial board. Therefore, lists of contributors and full editorial boards should be left out of articles, unless there are
Other things
Things like
- Author rights and permissions
- Contact information
- FAQs
- Index-like list of articles published in the journal
- Physical address
- Pricing and subscription information
- Submission guidelines
are all best left out of the article. Anyone who truly cares about that can consult the journal's website.
Cover
If possible, you should
External links
Here give a link to the homepage of the journal. It is already present in the infobox, but a link to the home page of an organization needs to be added in this section. Also, give the homepage of its affiliated society/organization if it has one and this has no article of its own. Something like:
- {{Official website|http://www.journalofoo.com}}
- [http://www.FooSociety.com Foo Society of Sierra Gordo]
Publisher homepages are usually of very little relevance, so do not include them unless they are of particular relevance (for example if the publisher was founded to publish that specific journal). Likewise, omit links to social media sites (such as Facebook and Twitter pages). For more general guidelines on this subject, see Wikipedia:External links#Official links and Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided.
Finishing touches
Remember to italicize the title of the page as appropriate. Usually this will be done automatically by the infobox, but can also be achieved by placing {{italic title}} at the top of the page if no infobox is present. Also make sure to italicize the name of the journal everywhere in the text.
Categories
Several categories should be added to the article when possible.
- A category detailing the field of the journal. Please visit Category:Academic journals by subject area and pick an appropriate category when possible. If you don't find any that are suitable, then just add the generic Category:Academic journals and somebody else will take care of it in due time.
- Open access journals
- If the journal is an open access journal, then add Category:Open access journals.
- If the journal is released under a Creative Commons license, then add Category:Creative Commons-licensed journals (or one of its subcategories) instead.
- If there is an embargo period, use Category:Delayed open access journals instead.
- If the author can pay for open access of their articles, use Category:Hybrid open access journals instead.
- If the journal is an
- Some publishers have their own journal categories. Please visit Category:Academic journals by publisher and pick an appropriate category when possible.
- If there is not a distinct publishing company or non-profit publisher involved, you can still choose a generic categorization, such as Category:Academic journals published by universities and colleges, Category:Academic journals published by learned and professional societies, etc.
- Journals that are associated with universities or learned societies (e.g., owned or sponsored) but are published by an external publisher on their behalf should be categorized under that publisher; they may also be put under Category:Academic journals associated with universities and colleges and Category:Academic journals associated with learned and professional societies.
- For some publication frequencies, separate journal categories exist. Please visit Category:Academic journals by publication frequency and pick an appropriate category when possible.
- For some languages, separate journal categories exist. Please visit Category:Academic journals by language and pick one or more appropriate categories when possible. For journals published in two or more languages, use Category:Multilingual journals, too.
- A category detailing the year of establishment (i.e. [[Category:Publications established in YYYY]]) and, if applicable, disestablishment ([[Category:Publications disestablished in YYYY]], in which case you'd also want to add it to [[Category:Defunct journals]]).
If the page starts with a The (such as The Journal of Foo), add the appropriate sortkey at the bottom of the page ({{DEFAULTSORT:Journal Of Foo, The}}). See Wikipedia:Categorization#Sort keys if you are unfamiliar with sortkeys.If any category is missing, contact WikiProject Academic Journals and let us know that the category is missing.
Redirects
Create
- Alternate and former names: For example, American Journal of Physics should have the following redirects
- American Physics Teacher → American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from former name}}
- The American Journal of Physics→ American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from alternative spelling}}
- The American Physics Teacher→ American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from former name}} + {{R from alternative spelling}}
- Abbreviations: For example, American Journal of Physics should have the following redirects
- Am. J. Phys. → American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from ISO 4 abbreviation}}
- Am J Phys → American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from ISO 4 abbreviation}}
- Am. Phys. Teach. → American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from ISO 4 abbreviation}}
- Am Phys Teach → American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{R from ISO 4 abbreviation}}
- Note that {{NLM, and MathSciNet standards once you fill the}}.
|abbreviation=
/|bluebook=
/|mathscinet=
/|nlm=
parameters of the infobox. Generic/non-standard abbreviations can be created manually and tagged with {{R from abbreviation
- Alternative capitalization: Wikipedia's search engine is case insensitive, so there is normally no need to create alternative capitalization redirects. However, if created, in English they should be tagged with {{R from miscapitalization}}, as appropriate. For example,
- R from miscapitalization}}
- R from other capitalization}}
- Acronyms: disambiguation page. Variants of acronyms should also point to the disambiguation page.
- with an entry for the journal added to the disambiguation page.
- Typos: If there is a likely or common typo for the journal, you can create a redirect for it as well, tagged with {{R from typo}}
- R from typo}}
- R from typo}}
- However, this is not critical and you can skip this step for most typos. Misspellings due to differences between American and British Englishare more important to identify however (e.g. Journal of Archeology vs Journal of Archaeology).
Stub templates
If the article is missing the some of the information suggested by this guide (completed infobox, scope, affiliations, publication history, and abstracting/indexing information), add a stub template such as {{Biology-journal-stub}} (see list of journals stub templates for more) at the bottom of the article. If no specific stub template can be found, you can use the more generic {{Academic-journal-stub}}. The stub template will correctly categorize the page in the appropriate stub category—you do not need to add the stub category directly.
Wikiprojects tagging and planning for the long-term
- Note: For professional or trade magazines, you'll usually want to use {{WikiProject Magazines}} instead of {{WikiProject Academic Journals}}. However, sometimes both {{WikiProject Academic Journals}} and {{WikiProject Magazines}} might be appropriate.
It is important for the long-term development of articles that their talk pages be tagged with an appropriate WikiProject template and given an
This also applies to relevant disambiguation pages. There is no need to tag redirects, but it is not wrong to do so either. For example, see
- Talk:American Journal of Physics, tagged with {{WikiProject Academic Journals}} + {{WikiProject Physics}} + others
- Talk:AJP, tagged with {{WikiProject Academic Journals}} + {{WikiProject Disambiguation}} + others
For clarity, each template should be on their own line at the top of the talk page, e.g.:
{{WikiProject Academic Journals|class=...}} {{WikiProject Physics|class=...}}
How to assess articles
In general, rating articles as Stub/Start/C/B class based on your 'gut feeling' is fairly uncontroversial and can be done unilaterally. The threshold between C class and B class is often difficult to gauge, and it doesn't terribly matter which of these two ratings the article gets, but typically C is more appropriate than B class for 'short' articles. You can rate articles by placing |class=Stub
, |class=Start
, |class=C
, |class=B
and so on in their Wikiproject template (e.g. {{WikiProject Academic Journals|class=Stub}}
).
- If the article is missing the some of the information suggested by this guide (completed infobox, scope, affiliations, publication history, and abstracting/indexing information), it should be rated as 'Stub' class.
- If the article contains all the information suggested by this guide (completed infobox, scope, affiliations, publication history, and abstracting/indexing information), it should be rated 'Start' class.
- If the article contains more than the 'basic' information suggested by this guide (e.g. if it has a substantively developed history section), it may be appropriate to rate the article 'C' or 'B' class (
|class=C
or|class=B
) (seeassessment rating). If unsure, rate as C class over B class. - If the article is substantially developed and well written, you may considered nominating it for a featured article status. Do not unilaterally assess them as such yourself. As of 2015, only two journal articles have reached good-article status: The Accounting Review and Genes, Brain and Behavior. No journal article has reached featured-article status.
See also
- DGG's suggestions for what journal articles should contain
- Journal resources useful for finding reliable sources (including some pre-formatted references)
- Randykitty's journal resources (including some pre-formatted references)