Choose a journal that fits your paper’s topic, and then check its ISSN in Scopus Sources yourself, not on the journal’s own website.
Most scholars miss that second step. Some journal will write “Scopus indexed” in big letters on its home page, and still there is no record of it in Scopus. So always open Scopus and see the record with your own eyes, and that hardly takes two minutes. After that you can look at whether your university will count the journal, and then at the fee and the review time.
Read your university’s rule before you look at any journal
Many scholars are getting journal list from a senior or a WhatsApp group, and they start applying from that list straight away. Better you keep it aside for now. First open your university’s PhD regulation and go to the clause on publications. That clause says what type of journal is counted, and half the names on the senior’s list will drop out in the first reading itself.
In the five cities we work with, the rules are very different. For some universities any Scopus paper is enough. Some others want a particular quartile. Anna University wants a journal from its own CFR list. At KTU, a Scopus journal that charges authors a fee counts only when SCI, SCIE or SSCI also lists it. So one journal can be fine for one scholar and rejected for another in the next town.
Author order is also part of the rule. JNTUH wants the scholar as first author. Osmania wants the paper written jointly with the supervisor. Bangalore University asks for two articles where you are the first author. If the author order is wrong, even a good journal will not save that paper for your thesis.
| University (city) | What the paper rule asks for | What it means for your journal choice |
|---|---|---|
| VTU (Bengaluru centres) | For USN year code 20 or later, one paper in a Q1–Q3 Scopus journal (2026 checklist) | See the quartile as it was on the publication date, not the current one |
| Osmania (Hyderabad) | Two papers in Scopus or Web of Science journals, written jointly with the supervisor (2026-27 rules) | CARE titles are not counted now, so check Scopus or WoS with the ISSN |
| JNTUH (Hyderabad) | Four papers, minimum two in WoS, SCI or Scopus, with the scholar as first author | Four papers take time, so plan the two indexed ones early |
| KTU (Trivandrum) | One SCI, SCIE, SSCI or Scopus paper, and a Scopus journal charging a fee must also be listed in SCI/SCIE/SSCI | If you are thinking of a Scopus-only title, open its fee page first |
| Amrita (Coimbatore) | Journal papers in Q1 or Q2 of Scopus or WoS | A Q3 or Q4 journal will not help you for this rule |
| Anna University (Chennai, Coimbatore) | One paper in a journal from the CFR journal list before the synopsis | Scopus indexing alone does not help unless the title is on the CFR list |
Check the journal in Scopus itself
Open Scopus Sources and search with the ISSN. We say ISSN because anybody can copy a journal title, and copying the ISSN also is more difficult for them. The print ISSN and the electronic ISSN should both match the numbers printed on the journal’s own papers.
Once the record comes up, check that the publisher name matches the website where you plan to submit. The Scopus record also show the coverage years, so see whether coverage is still running or it has stopped at some year. Last, the website link in the record has to point to the same domain the call for papers came from.
If the domain is different, stop there. A cloned journal takes a real title and ISSN, puts them on another website and collects the fee from scholars. Anna University’s Centre for Research has given a circular that papers in such counterfeit copies are rejected. Our journal checker can do the first checks for you, but the final word is the Scopus record only.
For Web of Science you do the same check in the Master Journal List. Note which index the journal is in. SCIE and ESCI are two different indexes, and every university rule does not treat them in the same way.
Look for the journal on the discontinued list
Scopus does not keep every title for ever. Titles are chosen by an independent board called the Content Selection and Advisory Board, and the same board re-evaluates any journal that gets flagged. During the re-evaluation, Scopus suspends new papers of that journal, and if it fails, it is discontinued.
The discontinued titles are given in the Scopus source title list. It is an Excel file updated every month. Download it, go to the discontinued sheet and search your ISSN in it. Papers that are already indexed usually remain in Scopus. But a paper published after the cut-off date will not be indexed, and many times it is exactly the paper you were counting on for your rule.
Check this list two times. Do it once while you are shortlisting, and once more just before you pay any fee. Within one month the status of a journal can change.
Match the paper to the journal’s scope
Most desk rejections happen because the paper does not fit the journal. The editor reads the title and abstract, and within a few minutes he or she decides the paper belongs in some other journal.
Read the aims and scope page slowly, and then the titles in the last two issues. Some journals take survey-based studies and some take mostly lab work, and you will know which one from those issues itself. See also if Indian samples are coming in their papers or they want data from one region only. Suppose you are not getting even three recent papers similar to yours, then your paper and that journal are not a good match.
Your own reference list also helps. Count which journals you cited most. If you cite one journal four or five times, that journal is already publishing on your problem, and its editor will see your paper as part of the same discussion.
Quartile, CiteScore and what they mean for you
In Scopus, the journals in one subject category are divided into four bands called quartiles. Q1 means the 75th percentile and above, Q2 is the 50th to 75th, and it goes down like that till Q4. A journal can be in two subject categories and have a different band in each one. So note down the category your university will look at.
The quartile shown on many websites is from Scimago (SJR). It is calculated differently from the CiteScore percentile inside Scopus, and the two may not agree. Amrita, for example, defines its Q1 and Q2 by Scopus percentiles. In many regulations the word quartile is there but whose quartile is not written. Then talk to your guide or the research cell first, and only then go by the Scimago badge on a website.
Quartiles change every year. VTU’s Genuineness Certificate asks for proof that the journal was in the stated quartile at the time of publication. On the day your paper comes out, save a dated screenshot of the Scopus record. One minute of work now can avoid an argument later.
Some scholars want Q1 only. But a Q1 journal with a long queue and a review of one year can be a wrong choice if your synopsis is due in eight months. Many times a good Q2 or Q3 journal that fits your paper and your rule is the better plan.
Fees and review time
Look at the fee page of the journal before you submit. Don’t wait till acceptance to see it. Many Scopus journals follow a subscription model and charge nothing to publish. Open access journals usually take an article processing charge, stated with the currency on the website. Suppose the website is silent on fee and the amount comes to you by email after acceptance only. That is a warning sign, so be careful with such journals.
For review time there is no official national figure. Scholars mostly plan on three to eight months at Scopus-indexed journals, but this range is only a rough rule from experience and not a statistic. Many publishers show a “time to first decision” on the journal page, so use that number for the particular journal you pick.
After that, plan backwards from your university’s deadline. VTU wants the papers before the pre-submission colloquium. Anna University wants one paper before the synopsis, and Osmania wants them before thesis submission. Suppose your deadline is ten months away and the journal takes five months for the first decision. Then you have time for one revision and not much more.
Build a short list of three
Before submitting, select three journals and put them in order. We ask our scholars to make a small table in Excel or even in a notebook, one row per journal. In that row note its ISSN and the quartile along with the category. Fee and the review time they state also go there, with one column saying yes or no for your university’s rule.
Then a rejection from the first journal does not stop you much. Within one week you reformat the paper and it goes to the second journal. Many scholars start searching from zero in the end of every rejection, and that is how months get lost. Save the author guidelines of all three journals, because each one has its own reference style and word limit.
Send the paper to one journal at a time and wait for their reply before going to the next. Submitting the same manuscript to two journals together is against publication ethics, and editors can find it out.
Where we can help
We work remotely from Nagercoil and give research paper and publication support to scholars. In this work we shortlist journals against your university’s clause and check every title in Scopus and Web of Science. We also format the paper as per the author guidelines and draft the cover letter along with you. Our cover letter generator gives a first draft of that letter for you to edit.
Acceptance we cannot promise, and nobody honest will promise it to you. The editor and the reviewers take that decision, and the paper stands on your own work. If some journal looks doubtful to you, read our page on predatory journal warning signs or check its name in the predatory journal checker.
Questions scholars ask
Is a UGC-CARE journal the same as a Scopus journal?
No, they are different. The CARE list itself has also stopped. UGC gave a notice on 11 February 2025, and from that notice onwards there is no CARE listing. Then in July 2025 it put up a reference list of 1,474 journals, with a warning that being on that list is not a stamp of approval. So today no journal can be “UGC-CARE approved”. Still, you will find CARE written in the rules of some universities, and you have to see what your own university’s rule says about it.
The journal says it is Scopus indexed. Isn’t that enough?
It is not enough. Search the ISSN yourself in Scopus Sources. If there is no record, or the website link in the record goes to some other domain, don’t submit there.
Will my paper be removed if the journal is discontinued later?
Mostly no. Content that is already indexed normally stays in Scopus, except when the misconduct is proven and severe. Any paper that journal publishes after the cut-off date will not come into Scopus at all.
Can I count a conference paper in a Scopus-indexed proceedings?
That depends on your university. As per Bharathiar University’s rules, papers in proceedings are not counted. Some other universities do accept them. Before sending the paper to a conference, open your own regulation and read that clause word by word.
How many journals should I shortlist?
For most papers three journals are enough. Rank them in order and keep their author guidelines ready. If the first one says no, move to the next within a week.