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For advice on writing articles about professional, hobbyist and other non-scholarly publications, seeWikipedia:WikiProject Magazines/Writing guide.

This guide is intended to assist editors in the creation and writing of articles onacademic journals,conference proceedings,monographic series,and other scholarlyserial publications.After following this, you should have a "perfect stub",and bigger articles should feel a bit more" mainstream ". Note that this guide is not intended to replaceWikipedia's Manual of Styleand that articles should follow the usual layout/formatting guidelines.

For the sake of simplicity, these publications will be referred as 'journals' in this guideline, unless otherwise noted.

Editing with a conflict of interest[edit]

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See also:Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide

If you areaffiliated with a journal or its publisher,this puts you in aconflict of interest.Wikipedia has several policies on the topic, with which you must comply to ensure aneutral point of view.The highlights are if you are compensated for editing, or are asked to edit an article as part of your job,you must disclose it.Likewise, if you are not compensated but stand to gain standing, gain status in your field, get credit in a course, or advance a cause,you must disclose it.If you do not disclose such conflicts of interest, you may beblockedfrom editing. SeeWikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosureandWikipedia:Conflict of interestfor more information.

Disclosing these conflicts of interest can be done as follows:

To declare Place On To display...
Paid editing {{Paid|employer=Foobar Publishing}} User page
$This user, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation'sTerms of Use,discloses that they have been paid by Foobar Publishing for their contributions to Wikipedia.
{{Connected contributor (paid)|User1=Example|U1-employer=Foobar Publishing}} Article talk page
Other conflicts of interest {{UserboxCOI|Foobar Publishing}} User page
This user has publicly declared that they have aconflict of interestregarding the Wikipedia articleFoobar Publishing.
{{Connected contributor|User1=Example}} Article talk page

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 ofrecently established journals,niche journals,orfringe journals.WhileScience's andNature's reputation are well established by now, this may not be true of a recently established journal (roughly anything established in the last 20 years or so), of a niche journal of interest to only a handful of people (e.g.Horological Institute of America Journal), or of a fringe/pseudoscience journal (e.g.Answers Research Journal).

Note that disclosing your conflicts of interest does not grant you a "right" to edit, or give you license toadvocateoradvertise,it is simply a minimum requirement for participation. If you are in a conflict of interest, it is best to limit yourself to this guide and stick to adding/updating non-controversial information (seewhat to includeandwhat not to include) such as updatingjournal articles related to your publisherto have the most up-to-date impact factors, document history (merges/splits, current/previous editor(s)-in-chief), uploading missing cover images, fi xing links to official websites, or expanding thefurther readingsection. Updating existing routine information based on updated sources is also non-controversial. However, if you wanted to add a section on how the journal recently won some recognition, or the specific business practices of the journal/publisher, it is probably best to suggest doing so on the article's talk page (with sources) and let other editors decide if this is warranted.

If something is unclear, or if you are unsure of something or need help getting around, you can always ask for advice atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic journals.If you arehere to improvethe encyclopedia and want to edit in line with community expectations, you will find helpful editors. If you arehere to promotea journal, attemptsearch engine optimization,or otherwise try togame Wikipedia,your efforts will most likely be in vain and may beblocked.Your efforts may evenbackfire,as Wikipedians are prone to purge anythingremotelypromotional in an attempt to sanitize articles edited by those with COIs (leaving the article more negative than it would have otherwise been). You may also cause a PR nightmare for yourself by making the news for attempting to subvert Wikipedia,causingthe general public tovandalise the articlewith rather unflattering claims.

Step-by-step guide[edit]

Getting started[edit]

See also:Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Resources

Before starting to write an article on a journal, it helps to keep a few things in mind.

  • First,searchfor 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 toour notability guidelines,otherwise it will probably be deleted. A journal will usually be considered notable ifat least oneof the three following criteria are met:
  1. The journal is considered by reliable sources to be influential in its subject area.
  2. The journal is frequently cited by other reliable sources.
  3. 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 inhigh-selectivitybibliographic databasesin its field (e.g.ScopusorScience Citation Index) or has animpact factor,this will usually be enough to establish notability. Being indexed inlow-selectivity(e.g.Emerging Sources Citation Index,Directory of Open Access Journals), orcomprehensive(e.g.Google Scholar) bibliographic databases is not enough. An alternative to a standalone article is to create a section in another relevant article. For instanceBird Notesis detailed in a section of ourRoyal 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. TheNational Library of Australia'scatalogueis a good place to look for such information. TheCODENdatabase 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[edit]

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,notPNAS) unless it is officially known in an abbreviated form (FASEB Journal,notFederation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal). Usetitle case,rather thansentence case(The Lancet,notThe lancet) perWP:NCCAPS.

  • The:If the "The" is part of the official full name, the article should be located at that name (The American Journal of Medicine,notAmerican Journal of Medicine,butAmerican Journal of Physics,notThe American Journal of Physics).
  • Subtitle:Subtitles are not part of the title. For example, useEuropean Journal of Physics,and notEuropean Journal of Physics: A Journal of the European Physical Society.
    • "Topical" subtitles can be included in thelead sectionifthey clarify the topic of the journal. For example, seeJournal of Physics A,withJournal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoreticalis 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 likeJournal of Physics A/B/C/D/E/F/Geach covering different topics). "Fluff"subtitles, likeAn International JournalorOfficial Organ of the International Foobar Societyshould be omitted entirely.
  • Capitalization:Usetitle case(American Journal of Physics,notAmerican journal of physics). In foreign languages, honor the native usage (e.g.,Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences,notComptes 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 inInjury(journal).

Seebelowfor guidance on how to deal with alternate spelling and former names.

The infobox[edit]

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{{infobox journal}}template to a page, and fill as many entries as you can. You cancopy-paste the codefrom the documentation page in the article, rather than type it all yourself. It is OK to leave blank fields. An infobox does not replace prose, it simply presents key information (such as ISSN, language, license, impact factor, journal website, etc...) in a consistent (andmachine-readable) manner from article to article. Filling this infobox will also help with the writing of the article. Please read thedocumentationfor this infobox carefully before filling in the different fields.

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. SeeWikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Resourcesfor where to look for those.

Moving from the infobox to prose[edit]

After you're done filling the infobox, convert what you can into prose. For example, if theJournal of Foois 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 acitation templateto 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 (replaceNAMEwith something you like, such asJFooWebsite).This toolcan greatly facilitate filling out the templates.

Nevercopy-paste descriptions (or anything else) from journal websites. These cannot be trusted to beneutraland are likely to becopyrighted material.Beware ofweasel words,such as "is aleadingjournal... "," publisheshigh-qualityresearch... ", etc...

What to include[edit]

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Journal scope[edit]

The article should have a brief description of the journal's scope and fields of interest (which is different from itsaims). Explicitly mention if the journal is peer-reviewed or not. Not being peer-reviewed is exceedingly rare for academic journals, so this usually means that the publication is better treated as amagazine(seethe magazine article writing guide). Unless there is a lot to say, this information can be included in the lead.

Official affiliations[edit]

If the journal is affiliated with scientific societies (i.e. is their official journal), or part of an independent network of publications (such as theGeoscience e-Journals,theBudapest Open Access Initiative,orSCOAP3,but notScienceDirectorWiley Online Library), this should be mentioned. Unless there is a lot to say on this topic, this information can be included in the lead.

Publication history[edit]

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" (seeJournal of the National Cancer Institute§ HistoryorJournal of Optics§ Historyfor examples).

Supplements and side publications[edit]

Some journals have supplemental issues or side publications (such asThe Astrophysical Journal,withThe Astrophysical Journal LettersandThe Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series). If this is the case, mention them along with relevant information (editor, ISSN, year of establishment, impact factor, abstracting/inde xing information, etc.). If these publications arenotable on their own(such asPhysical Review Letters), consider creating a standalone article for them.

Abstracting and inde xing information[edit]

This information can often be obtained from the journal's website, or throughMIAR.The information is generally best presented in its own subsection titled "Abstracting and inde xing". List any selective or topical databases. These are crucial to establish that the journal passes ournotability guidelines,e.g.:

The journal is [[abstracting and inde xing |abstracted and indexed]] in the [[Social Sciences Citation Index]], [[Current Contents]]/Social & Behavioral Sciences, and [[Scopus]].

Selective or topical database mean things like theAstrophysics Data System,theBritish Humanities Index,MEDLINE,INIS Atomindex,PASCAL,Scopus,(Social)Science Citation Index,etc. Trivial listings in non-selective or non-topical databases such as theISSN Register,Google Scholar,Index Copernicus,orDirectory of Open Access Journalsshould be omitted.

Finish the section with the journal'simpact factoras given in theJournal 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 theJournal 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 theJournal Citation Reportsyourself.

Landmark papers[edit]

If the journal has published particularly famous papers (e.g. papers that are notable enough to warrant their own Wikipedia article), like the1964 PRL symmetry breaking papers(published inPhysical Review Letters), or "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"(published inThe Philosophical Review), mention those. You can also mention particular papers that have attractedsignificant coverageinindependent sources.A small number of quotations, especially in local news media or blogs, is not unexpected for papers and so falls short of this mark.

Further reading[edit]

See also:Wikipedia:Further readingandMOS:FURTHER

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 rarelyindependentsources,they might be acceptable asprimary referencesfor uncontroversial claims, and will offer valuableinsiderviews to the reader. For instance

  • Asghar Abbas; Syed Asim Ali (10 July 2015).Print Culture: Sir Syed's Aligarh Institute Gazette 1866-1897.Primus Books.ISBN978-93-84082-29-1.
  • Wheeler, CE (January 1985). "TheAmerican Journal of Nursingand the socialization of a profession, 1900-1920 ".Advances in Nursing Science.7(2): 20–34.doi:10.1097/00012272-198501000-00006.PMID3917644.S2CID12462549.
  • "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,andPhysical Review Letters,respectively).

Whatnotto include[edit]

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See also:Wikipedia is not a directory of indiscriminate informationandWikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion

Aims, mission statements, readership[edit]

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 Foobaris 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[edit]

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 areindependent reliable sourcesdiscussing their involvement with the journal in a more-than-in-passingway.

Other things[edit]

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[edit]

If possible, you shouldupload an imageof the cover of the journal and place it in the infobox. You can usually find low-resolution images on the journal's website (or on the publisher's website) that can be uploaded underour non-free media use guidelines.For an example of a cover upload, seehere.

External links[edit]

See also:Wikipedia: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:// journalofoo }}
  • [http:// FooSociety 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 asFacebookandTwitterpages). For more general guidelines on this subject, seeWikipedia:External links#Official linksandWikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided.

Finishing touches[edit]

Remember to italicize the title of the page as appropriate. Usually this will be done automatically bythe 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[edit]

Several categories should be added to the article when possible.

If the page starts with aThe(such asThe Journal of Foo), add the appropriate sortkey at the bottom of the page ({{DEFAULTSORT:Journal Of Foo, The}}). SeeWikipedia:Categorization#Sort keysif you are unfamiliar with sortkeys.If any category is missing, contactWikiProject Academic Journalsand let us know that the category is missing.

Redirects[edit]

Createredirectsfor the following and tag them with the relevant{{R from}}template.

Note that{{Infobox journal}}will automatically ask you to create abbreviations for theISO 4,Bluebook,NLM,andMathSciNetstandards 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}}.
  • Acronyms:Acronymscan be redirected to the journal if they are unique to the journal (if so, create them and tag with{{R from acronym}}). However, many acronyms will refer to multiple things. Those are best handled as adisambiguation 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}}
However, this is not critical and you can skip this step for most typos. Misspellings due to differences betweenAmerican and British Englishare more important to identify however (e.g.Journal of ArcheologyvsJournal of Archaeology).

Stub templates[edit]

If the article is missing thesome of the information suggested by this guide(completed infobox, scope, affiliations, publication history, and abstracting/inde xing information), add a stub template such as{{Biology-journal-stub}}(seelist of journals stub templatesfor 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[edit]

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 anappropriate WikiProjecttemplate and given anassessment rating.You should add the WikiProject Academic Journals template{{WikiProject Academic Journals}}andother relevant WikiProject templates when possible (such as{{WikiProject Physics}};seeCategory:WikiProjects by disciplinefor more). Doing so will ensure that the relevant WikiProjects will be contacted if the article is (for example)nominated for deletion(if they subscribe to theArticle Alertssystem), and will be categorized in the appropriateCleanup Listings,on top of providing convenient links to WikiProjects for editors looking for help.

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

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[edit]

See also:Wikipedia:Content assessment

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=Band so on in their Wikiproject template (e.g.{{WikiProject Academic Journals|class=Stub}}).

  • If the article is missing thesome of the information suggested by this guide(completed infobox, scope, affiliations, publication history, and abstracting/inde xing information), it should be rated as 'Stub' class.
  • If the article containsall the information suggested by this guide(completed infobox, scope, affiliations, publication history, and abstracting/inde xing 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=Cor|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 agoodorfeaturedarticle status. Do not unilaterally assess them as such yourself. As of 2015, only two journal articles have reached good-article status:The Accounting ReviewandGenes, Brain and Behavior.No journal article has reached featured-article status.

See also[edit]

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