Scientific journals: Choosing the right
ones for you
Today’s agenda:
1. Consider the range of journals in which SAFS faculty and students
publish and which journals they need to look at.
2. How do we decide which journals to consult and what papers to
read in the journals?
3. Look over the list and rate the journals as “not likely to read,”
“might read if I had time,” and “most likely to read.”
4. Then choose a favorite journal, look at the table of contents, and
pick a paper that most interests you. Choose wisely, and be
prepared to tell us why that paper caught your eye.
5. Your new or revised question posed as a hypothesis.
Titles of scientific journals and articles:
So many to choose from but no time to read them all.
So, what are we looking for?
Journals in which SAFS faculty published in 2001–2011
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
Transactions of the American Fisheries Society
Fisheries Research
ICES Journal of Marine Science
Marine Ecology Progress Series
Ecology
Journal of Cetacean Research and Management
Copeia
Ecological Applications
Fish and Fisheries
Journal of Fish Biology
North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission Bulletin
Fisheries Oceanography
Fisheries
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Fishery Bulletin
Marine and Freshwater Research
North American Journal of Fisheries Management
Conservation Biology
Freshwater Biology
Ecosystems
Limnology and Oceanography
Ecological Modeling
Science
Deep-Sea Research
Diseases of Aquatic Organisms
Estuaries
85
56
38
32
31
23
23
21
19
19
19
19
18
18
18
17
17
15
14
14
13
13
12
12
11
11
10
Other journals in ecology, conservation, and aquatic systems
Bulletin of Marine Science
Journal of Shellfish Research
Molecular Ecology
Canadian Journal of Zoology
Journal of Wildlife Management
Marine Mammal Science
Environmental Biology of Fishes
Marine and Coastal Fisheries Science
Oecologia
Ecology of Freshwater Fish
Evolutionary Applications
Journal of Aquatic Animal Health
Marine Biology
Oikos
Wildlife Society Bulletin
Aquaculture Research
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Behaviour
American Midland Naturalist
Ichthyological Research
Estuaries and Coasts
Journal of Crustacean Biology
J. of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
Nature
River Research Applications
Aquaculture
Ecological Research
Heredity
Journal of Fish Diseases
Ambio
Animal Behaviour
Biological Invasions
Crustaceana
Endangered Species Research
Environmental Science and Technology
Fish Physiology Biochemistry
Journal of Aquatic Animal Health
Journal of Ichthyology
Marine Ornithology
Marine Pollution Bulletin
Class activity: Let’s look at the names of
selected journals and indicate whether you
would regard them as
1. “Likely to look at,”
2. “Might look at if I had time,”
3. “Not likely to look at.”
Remember, we are all busy and no one
can read everything, so be honest and
admit that you’d skip some.
Class activity:
Let’s now go on-line to the UW library, find a
journal, open the table of contents, and look at it.
We will use the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and
Aquatic Sciences as an example. It is perhaps the
premier specialty journal in this field.
http://catalog.lib.washington.edu/search~
What next?
The task now will be to choose one journal out of the
long list we examined that interests you most. Think
carefully—this is an important decision because a
large part of the effort in this course will be devoted
to an in-depth analysis of an article that you find in
this journal.
So, for Wednesday, go on-line, find a journal, read
about it, skim some articles, and see if you still find it
interesting.
Let’s turn now to your new or revised
question, posed as a hypothesis:
1. What did you come up with?
2. In-class writing and peer editing.
Your assignment for Wednesday is two-fold:
1. Come to class prepared to present a short, tenminute summary of what you intend to do for your
individual research project. What is your question
and how will you go about answering it?
Assignment for Wednesday:
2. Choose a journal—look at recent (or long-past)
issues, scan the titles, and pick a single article. This
choice is very important. You will read that article
closely, write about it, tease it apart, present it to the
class in the form of a poster, and in other ways make
it a focal part of your experience in this course.
Come to class prepared to tell us a little about why
you chose the article and what it is about.
Please e-mail me a pdf copy of the paper, with your
name as part of the file name.