A Guide to the PJIP Directory

5/3/2024

The PJIP Directory contains a large amount of information, many abbreviations, and advanced tools for searching and filtering. Given this, the usefulness of the resource is easily inhibited by its complexity. To help, this post explains the data contained within the directory and guides users on how to navigate some of the directory's more intricate tools.

What information does the PJIP Directory contain?

Each row in the PJIP Directory contains information about a particular peer-reviewed journal. In each column, from left you right you’ll find:

‘Journal’ contains the journal title and when clicked, opens the journal’s PJIP profile page.
‘Area’ contains the type of philosophy published by the journal. This includes generalist journals that tend to publish in all areas of philosophy and specialist journals that only publish in certain areas. Each area is presented as a four letter code whose meaning can be found in the key below the directory.
‘WMin’ and ‘WMax’ contain the minimum and maximum length of a manuscript in words the journal is willing to consider for publication.
‘OpAc’ contains the journal’s open-access policy. Abbreviations in this column include: ‘DOA’ = Diamond open access journals whose articles are freely accessible for everyone and levy no charge for publication, ‘POA’ = Paid open access journals includes any journals that make their papers freely accessible but requires authors to pay for publication; usually an article processing charge (APC), ‘HYBD’ = Hybrid journals allow for open access publication if the author pays an APC but generally publishes non-open access papers, ‘NOA’ = These journals lock articles behind a paywall and offer no option to publish open access.
‘Anon’ contains the journal’s policies regarding the anonymity of their peer-review. Abbreviations in this column include: ‘SNGL’ = Single-blind peer-review where the author does not know the identity of the reviewer, ‘DBLD’ = Double-blind peer-review where (1) the author does not know the identity of the reviewer and (2) the reviewer does not know the identity of the author, ‘TRPL’ = Triple-blind peer-review where (1) the author does not know the identity of the reviewer, (2) the reviewer does not know the identity of the author, and (3) the editor does not know the identity of the author.
‘Revs’ contains information about if the journal publishes book reviews. Abbreviations in this column include: ‘YBKR’ = the journal publishes book reviews, but practices vary by journal; in some cases, authors are free to submit unsolicited book reviews to the journal, in other authors are advised to contact the book reviews editor directly, ‘Inv.’ = The journal exclusively publishes book reviews by invitation and is not willing to consider any unsolicited book reviews, ‘NBKR’ = book reviews are not published by the journal.
‘Disc’ contains information about the journal’s policies relating to the publication of discussion pieces. Abbreviations in this column include: ‘YDIS’ = the journal publishes discussion pieces, ‘RTJA’ = the journal exclusively publishes discussions of papers that have been published in their journal, ‘NDIS’ = discussions are not published by the journal.
The next three columns ‘SJR’, ‘SNIP’, and ‘CiSc’ are the citation-based ranking metrics of the SJR, SNIP, and CiteScore respectively. More information on what these metrics mean and how to use them to evaluate journals can be found in the PJIP Ranking Index.

The next five columns ‘Acpt’, ‘Com%’, ‘ADNR’, ‘ADWR’, and ‘ADAP’ contain information drawn from the PJIP’s Operations Survey and will only be complete if the journal participates in the survey.

‘Acpt’ contains the journal acceptance rate; worked out as total submissions divided by the number of those submissions that were accepted for publication.
‘Com%’ contains the proportion of manuscripts that were returned to authors with comments; worked out as total submissions divided by the number of those submissions that were returned to authors with comments.
‘ADDR’ stands for average days for a desk rejection, and it contains the average (mean) time (in days) for the journal to return the first decision on manuscripts that were rejected by editors before being sent to reviewers.
‘ADER’ stands for average days for an external review, and it contains the average (mean) time (in days) for the journal to return the first decision on manuscripts that were sent to reviewers.
‘ADAP’ stands for average days acceptance to publication, and it contains the average (mean) time (in days) between a manuscript being accepted for publication and being published, either in print or online (whichever was first)

Additional information is stored in a drop-down menu that is accessible by clicking the arrow on the far left of each row.

In the drop-down menu, from top to bottom, you’ll find:

‘Overview’ contains a short description of the journal that usually covers general information about the journal, its history, aims and scope, area of published in, and notable policies.
‘eISSN’ contains the journal’s electronic international standard serial number. This is used as a unique identifier for the journal and its series of publications.
‘Publisher’ contains the organisation that publishes the journal.

The bracketed (IOJ) value next to some journal names indicates that the journal publishes exclusively by invitation.
A Blank cell indicates that a source for the relevant information could not be found.

Basic Sorting

The table can be configured to show a certain number of entries per page by using the ‘Show [x number] entries’ dropdown menu at the top left of the table. Options include displaying 10, 25, 50 or all.

Rows beyond those displayed on the first page are stored in separate pages that are accessible via the buttons located at the bottom right of the table.

Initially, the table sorts journals alphabetically by name but each column in the table can be sorted by clicking the diamond to the right of each column title.

The 'Sub-Fields' button above the table can be used to show journals in a particular sub-discipline. The reset button next to it will set the table back to its default status (as will refreshing the page).

Search Box

The search box in the top right allows for searching throughout the table. It can be used to quickly lookup a particular journal.

The search will also look for matches in all columns and data stored in the drop-down menus. This can be used to quickly isolate journals of a certain type (i.e. typing ‘DOA’ shows only Diamond Open-Access journals).

Custom Search Builder

The Custom Search Builder, located below the table, allows users to identify journals with highly specific criteria.

You can choose what column to search in and place a variety of conditions on what values you want presented. For example, to show maximum word counts that are greater than 7412, to show SJR rankings between 0.2 and 2, or to not show journals that do not allow for open-access publication. Conditions can also be indented and combined as conjunctions or disjunctions to produce especially specialised results. For example, to show 'generalist' or 'moral and political' or 'aesthetics' journals. Or journals with both maximum word counts that are greater than 7412 and minimum word counts less than 7412 (i.e. all journals that will consider a paper of 7412 words). Moreover, all these requests can be made concurrently, as is shown below.

The Custom Search Builder is also fully compatible with both the search box and the table sorting functions.

If you have any further questions or suggestions, feel free to get in touch: [email protected]

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