A publication in a reputable academic journal can be understood as participation in an ongoing scientific discussion. Whether an article is ready for publication depends largely on whether it is prepared to meaningfully enter that discussion.
Consider the following analogy. Imagine yourself as a student attending a roundtable discussion among professors. At first, you sit some distance from the table and simply listen, trying to understand what the discussion is about. Over time, you begin to grasp its main themes, although you still mostly observe and conduct your own research between meetings. Eventually, you not only understand the discussion but also start to disagree with certain points. At that moment, you try to take a seat at the table and contribute a few words of your own.
If the roundtable represents the scientific discussion within a particular discipline—conducted through articles published in academic journals—then those few words correspond to the novel contribution of the article you intend to submit for publication.
The existence of curated journal lists, such as those indexed in Scopus and Web of Science, is based on the assumption that the core scholarly conversation in any field takes place within a relatively small subset of all academic journals. Both databases apply structured evaluation criteria when selecting journals, including the presence of rigorous peer review, editorial quality, publishing regularity, international relevance, and sustained citation activity (Clarivate, 2023; Elsevier, 2023). These criteria aim to identify journals that are actively integrated into global scholarly communication, rather than those that remain peripheral. Consequently, inclusion in Scopus or Web of Science signals that a journal’s content is visible, citable, and influential within its research community.
One influential way of conceptualizing editorial decision-making is provided by MIT economist Glenn Ellison, who distinguishes between two quality dimensions of an academic article: q-quality and r-quality (Ellison, 2002). Q-quality refers to the novelty and intellectual contribution of the article, while r-quality concerns methodological correctness, as well as the reliability and validity of the results.
For most selective journals, q-quality plays a decisive role. During initial editorial screening, editors primarily assess whether a manuscript offers a meaningful new contribution to existing knowledge. Journals have little incentive to publish work that does not advance understanding in the field, as such articles are unlikely to attract readers or citations and may weaken the journal’s scholarly reputation.
If a manuscript lacks sufficient q-quality, it is often rejected at an early stage of the peer-review process. R-quality becomes particularly important when q-quality is moderate or borderline. In these cases, reviewers and editors typically impose especially high standards of methodological rigor, robustness, and transparency, making successful publication more challenging.
An important exception to this model is represented by so-called mega-journals, such as PLOS ONE and SAGE Open. These journals explicitly state that they do not evaluate submissions based on perceived novelty, importance, or expected impact. Instead, editorial decisions are based solely on r-quality criteria—namely, whether the research question is clearly formulated, the methodology is appropriate and correctly applied, and the results are reliable and valid (PLOS, 2024; SAGE Open, 2024).
In the natural sciences and medicine, PLOS ONE exemplifies this approach at scale, publishing tens of thousands of articles per year across a wide range of disciplines. In the social sciences, SAGE Open follows a similar model, albeit with a smaller publication volume. Despite differences in scale, both journals occupy a distinct position in the academic publishing ecosystem by prioritizing methodological soundness over novelty and by enabling broad participation in scientific discourse.
References
Clarivate. (2023). Web of Science journal evaluation process and selection criteria.
https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/journal-evaluation-process-and-selection-criteria/
Glenn Ellison, “Evolving Standards for Academic Publishing: A Q‐r Theory,” Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 5 (October 1, 2002): 994–1034, doi:10.1086/341871.
Elsevier. (2023). Scopus content policy and selection.
https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/how-scopus-works/content
PLOS. (2024). PLOS ONE editorial and peer review process.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/editorial-and-peer-review-process
SAGE Open. (2024). Submission guidelines and editorial criteria.
https://journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo