SCI / SCIE Journal Selection Guidance
Targeting SCIE journals properly: verified indexing, honest feedback on your manuscript, and help reading reviewer comments.
Many Indian universities, funding schemes and promotion circulars still ask for an “SCI paper”, mostly in science, engineering, medicine and agriculture. Today that means a journal in Clarivate’s Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), one of the Web of Science Core Collection indexes. These journals are selective, and the referees will go through your methods closely and ask for every detail to be reported. Many times the review goes to the longer end of the three-to-eight-month range, sometimes beyond it.
Mostly scholars come to us at one of two points. Some of them have results strong enough for an SCIE journal, and they want manuscript to survive a tough review. Others have got an offer promising an “SCI paper” by a fixed date, and want to check that journal first. We help with the first kind of work. For the second, we will check the journal for you even if you don’t work with us.
Every SCIE journal reviews at its own speed and as per its own standards, so we try to reduce the number of revision rounds. When your statistics, controls and reporting are correct in the first submission itself, the paper spends less time going back and forth for revision.
Quick answers
- What does SCI / SCIE journal selection guidance cover?
We give you a shortlist of SCIE journals, each one confirmed on the Master Journal List. Then a referee-style review of rigour, along with the reporting checklist your type of study needs. After that comes feedback on your manuscript, a formatting check, and help reading the reviews when they come. If you only want to know whether a journal is really “SCI indexed”, that check is free.
- How long does an SCIE paper take?
From our side, journal targeting takes 3–5 working days. The rigour review and feedback take 2–5 weeks, and the formatting check takes one more week. The journal’s first round of peer review alone commonly takes 2–5 months. So for a selective journal, keep six months or more in mind till acceptance.
- Can you get my paper into a Q1 journal?
We can list the Q1 journals in your JCR category. We will also tell you honestly if your paper can compete there or not. The decision to accept is with the editor and reviewers only. Suppose a Q2 or Q3 journal is the realistic target, we will tell you that.
- Is the similarity figure checked?
Yes. Every draft comes with a similarity report. We also open each cited reference and see that it supports its sentence. We follow the limits set by your university and the journal, but we don’t promise any particular score.
- How do I begin, and are revision rounds included?
First take a free consultation. Once we have seen your manuscript or your results, we give a fixed quote. The written scope mentions how many rounds each stage has. Feedback during revision can be included from the beginning or added later.
Scope
What’s included
Take only the stages you need. If the paper is already strong, journal targeting and the rigour review may be enough. For a first paper, most of the stages are usually useful.
Journal targeting in MJL and JCR
We shortlist SCIE journals that publish work similar to yours, and each one is confirmed on the Master Journal List. If your university rules ask for it, we also add the Journal Impact Factor and category quartile from JCR.
Scientific rigour review
Someone reads the paper like a referee would, looking at design, controls, sample size, statistics and reproducibility. We add the reporting checklist your field expects, like CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA or ARRIVE where they apply.
Manuscript feedback
We give comments on your contribution statement, and on how the paper compares with recent researches in high-impact journals. We also look at how the results are presented, and we check that the discussion stays within what the data actually show.
Formatting check and submission checklist
We check the manuscript’s formatting for the target journal and mark what needs fixing. If the journal asks for a cover letter, highlights or a graphical abstract, you prepare them and we review them. The usual declarations SCIE journals expect are also checked, and you submit from your own account.
Help with reviewer comments
When the reviews arrive, we explain what each comment is asking. You write the response letter and the revised manuscript, and we review both before you send. We help you plan any extra experiments or analyses a reviewer asks for.
Free journal check
Some journal is calling itself “SCI indexed”? Send us its name or ISSN. We will tell you what the Master Journal List shows for it, free of charge.
Quality
How quality is verified
These are the checks every piece of work goes through before it reaches you.
SCIE edition confirmed, not just “Web of Science”
We see that the Master Journal List entry shows Science Citation Index Expanded by name, and that the ISSN, title and publisher match. Being in Web of Science does not mean a journal is in SCIE.
Impact factor taken from JCR
If we quote an impact factor or quartile, it comes from Journal Citation Reports and we mention the edition year. We don’t take the figure printed on the journal’s own website.
Statistics checked by someone who uses them
Your tests, assumptions, effect sizes and handling of multiple comparisons are read by a person who does this kind of analysis in their own research. This is over and above the language editor.
Reporting checklist completed
When a reporting guideline applies to your type of study, we fill it in against your manuscript. Any item that is missing or not clear gets flagged.
Similarity report and reference verification
Each draft comes with a similarity report. We also open every reference you cite and check whether it supports the statement it is attached to.
Time
Realistic timelines
We finish our side in a few weeks. After you submit, the journal usually takes some months. SCIE journals differ a lot in speed. Many of them publish their median time to first decision, so do look at that number before you choose.
| Stage | Typical time | Who controls it |
|---|---|---|
| Journal targeting and verification | 3–5 working days | Us |
| Rigour review and manuscript feedback | 2–5 weeks | Us and you; longer if new analysis is needed |
| Formatting check and submission checklist | 1 week | Us |
| Editorial screening | 1–4 weeks | The journal |
| First round of peer review | 2–5 months | The journal and its reviewers |
| Revision, including any new experiments | 3 weeks to 3 months | You, with our help |
| Re-review and decision | 1–3 months | The journal |
Terminology
SCI, SCIE and the impact factor
Most of the confusion here is because three terms are used loosely.
SCI and SCIE
The original Science Citation Index was a smaller and highly selective group of science journals. The Expanded edition covered a bigger set. Clarivate does not keep SCI as a separate product now. Those journals now come under SCIE, and on the Master Journal List the edition shown is SCIE. So if a university circular asks for an “SCI journal”, almost always it means SCIE in practice. If the rule in your university can be read in a narrower way, ask your department to give you the exact wording in writing.
What the Journal Impact Factor is
The Journal Impact Factor is a citation measure at the journal level. Clarivate calculates it and releases it every year in Journal Citation Reports, usually around June. The number is about the journal and not about your paper. You can compare it only within one subject category. Quartiles (Q1 to Q4) rank the journals inside each category. So one journal can be Q1 in one category and Q2 in another. Our guide to impact factors, quartiles and the h-index explains where you can look up each of these.
Impact factors that are not the Impact Factor
Several organisations with similar-sounding names sell “impact factors” to journals. They have nothing to do with Clarivate. A journal advertising one of these numbers is not giving you any evidence of SCIE indexing. Suppose the number on the journal’s website is not there in JCR, then check that journal more carefully before you submit.
SCIE and the rest of Web of Science
Web of Science has SCIE, and next to it the indexes for social sciences, for arts and humanities, and for emerging sources. A journal in the Emerging Sources Citation Index is part of Web of Science. But it is not an SCIE journal. Whether your university accepts such a journal is a separate matter. The differences are covered on our page about Web of Science journal selection.
Pricing
How pricing works
We give a fixed quote after seeing your manuscript. If the paper is not written yet, we quote from your results. We discuss about the scope with you and agree on it in writing before work starts. We don’t have a rate card, because SCIE work changes a lot from one paper to another. A rigour review of a clinical study is a very different job from a formatting check on a materials-science letter.
Some SCIE journals are subscription journals, and many times these charge authors nothing. Others are open-access journals that have article processing charges. Any APC is paid by you directly to the publisher, after acceptance.
What the quote depends on
- How far the manuscript and analysis are complete
- Which stages you pick
- The study design, and how much statistical review it needs
- Length, figures, tables and any supplementary material
- Whether you take feedback during revision from the start or add it later
Every quote includes
- A written scope listing exactly what will be delivered
- A fixed price agreed before any payment
- Payment in stages, tied to delivery
- Revision rounds stated in the scope
Process
How it works
Free consultation
A call or message with a specialist in your subject. We review your material and say plainly whether we are the right fit.
Written scope and quote
You get a written scope, a timeline and a fixed price. Work and payment begin once you agree to it.
Staged delivery
Work arrives in stages you review, each with a similarity report where text is involved. You pay stage by stage.
Revisions and hand-over
Revision rounds are included. At the end you get the final files, and an explanation of anything you’ll need to defend.
Keep reading
Guides and related services
SCI and SCIE journals: how to check the Web of Science list
Step-by-step checks in Clarivate’s Master Journal List, and what SCI, SCIE, SSCI and ESCI mean for your paper.
Scopus vs Web of Science (SCI, SCIE)
What each database covers, which one your university means, and how to check a journal in each.
Impact factor, quartiles and h-index, explained
What each metric measures, where to look it up, and which ones on a journal website are unofficial.
How to spot a predatory journal
A checklist to run before you submit anywhere — and what to do if you’ve already submitted.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Will my paper definitely be accepted by an SCI journal?
No. In an SCIE journal, the editor and independent reviewers decide on acceptance. What we can do is help you make the manuscript strong, as far as your data permits, and pick journals that publish this kind of work. That is the real way your chances go up.
Is there still a difference between SCI and SCIE?
Not in the form of separate lists you can check now. Clarivate moved the old SCI journals into SCIE, and the Master Journal List shows SCIE. Some university rules still say “SCI”. In that case ask your department once whether SCIE journals are fine for the requirement. Almost always they do.
A journal says it is “SCI indexed” with an impact factor of 4.8, but I can’t find it on the Master Journal List. What does that mean?
Usually this means the journal is not in SCIE at present. The impact factor is then from some unrelated organisation. Sometimes a website copies a genuine journal’s name. In both cases, don’t submit till the ISSN on the website matches an SCIE entry on the Master Journal List. We can check this for you free of cost.
I need a Q1 journal. Can you arrange that?
From JCR we can find the Q1 journals in your category and give you a realistic view of whether your paper can compete there. Whether it gets accepted, that the journal decides. Suppose your work looks more suited for a Q2 or Q3 journal, we will say that openly, because a realistic target usually gets the paper published faster.
How long does SCIE publication take?
From submission to acceptance it takes several months, and many times six months or more at selective journals. Add our preparation time before that. Each stage is broken down in our publication timeline guide.
Do you write the paper or the response, or add your expert as co-author?
No. You write the paper and the replies to reviewers. Authorship has to show a real contribution to the research, so nobody from our team goes on the author list. What we give is advice and feedback. You should be able to defend every part of the paper yourself. See our ethics policy.
Is my data safe with you?
Yes. Only the reviewer working on your manuscript and data gets to see them, and they are used for your project only. Deleting your files after the work is also possible, you only have to ask. An NDA also we will sign, in case your lab needs one.
What if the paper is rejected after review?
Rejection after review is common at SCIE journals and it is a normal part of publishing. A detailed review is useful. We help you understand the comments. You work on them and then send the paper to the next journal from the shortlist. The cost for this follow-on work is fixed in advance.
Talk it through with a specialist for free
Send us where you are and what you need. We’ll reply within one working day with clear advice, a written scope and a fixed quote. No obligation.
Book a free consultation