Author: Ángel Hernando Gómez – Translation: Erika-Lucia Gonzalez-Carrion
Talking about emerging topics and research topics is putting the wound in one of the main parameters that should be taken into account if you want to publish in high impact journals.
The impact index worries the authors, it is always desired to publish in the best positioned journals and, therefore, with a higher impact index, but it also worries the journals because it is the way in which they are classified and placed in a most relevant place in the ranking of their area.
The impact index is obtained through a quotient between the number of manuscripts published in the last two years and the citations received, from journals of the same indexation source, in the same years.
To increase citations, and therefore the impact index, journals have to select emerging themes so they are a direct source when it comes to know where research is moved in a determined area. Also the congresses of the different areas, given their immediacy, are also a forum in which they try to reflect and provide research data on the topics that, at a given time, are current issues.
Taking into account these considerations is why we propose a double track when it comes to locating which are the emerging themes in an area.
First, a search can be made to find which are the journals that, for a certain area, are in quartiles Q1 and Q2, both from WOS and SCOPUS. Once this is done we should review the abstracts and keywords of all the articles published in these journals in the last two years (although it may seem like a huge task, it is not and it is relatively easy to do in a short time). Obviously, if the journals need that their call for papers become of the maximum actuality (in which they make division between monographic and miscellaneous, also the manuscripts that are published in the miscellany part) this is a basic source when determining which are the emerging themes of a particular scientific area. Carrying out this task, before initiating research processes, will allow us to channel these into themes that are more easily published in high-impact journals.
The second complementary source to locate emerging themes are the Congresses, both national and international, that are most important in this area of specialization. The immediacy of the congresses and the «being up to date» that is intended with them, as a source of exchange and advance in research, allows us to know, through the analysis of the themes and symposiums proposed in the last two years, what concerns as a research topic in each area.
The union of these two strategies will allow us to know which are the emerging themes in our research area and, the fact of getting to know it, facilitates us to channel our next researches into current emerging topics that are, in the end, interesting for the journals of high impact in which we intend to publish the manuscripts that inform of our studies and works.
