Glossary
Academic publishing glossary
Plain-language definitions of the academic publishing terms that actually affect whether your paper gets published — each with practical guidance and a link to the tool that helps.
Predatory journal
A journal that charges publication fees but does not provide the legitimate editorial and peer-review services a journal is supposed to. How to spot one, and how to avoid it.
Read the definition →Desk rejection
When a journal editor rejects a manuscript before it reaches peer review — usually within days. Why it happens, how common it is, and how to avoid it.
Read the definition →Salami slicing
Splitting one body of research into multiple 'least publishable unit' papers. Why editors and reviewers treat it as a problem, and where the legitimate line is.
Read the definition →Journal quartile
The quarter of its subject category a journal falls into when the category's journals are ranked by a citation indicator — Q1 is the top 25%. Scimago vs JCR quartiles, and why one journal can hold two.
Read the definition →SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)
A prestige-weighted citation indicator from Scopus data: a citation counts for more when it comes from a highly ranked journal. What the number means and how quartiles are cut from it.
Read the definition →Impact factor vs cites per paper
The Journal Impact Factor is a Clarivate metric we neither compute nor license. What our journal profiles show instead, how each figure is calculated, and how to compare journals honestly.
Read the definition →Article processing charge (APC)
The fee some journals charge authors to publish an accepted article, most often to make it open access. Who pays, when it is due, diamond open access with no fee, and where our APC figures come from.
Read the definition →h-index
The largest number h such that h of a journal's papers have each been cited at least h times. Where the figure comes from, why it favours older and larger journals, and how to read it.
Read the definition →Frequently asked questions
What is this glossary for?
It defines the academic publishing concepts that have direct, practical consequences for getting a paper accepted — predatory journals, desk rejection, salami slicing, and the journal metrics you will be judged against: quartiles, SJR, the impact factor and its open equivalent, article processing charges and the h-index. Each entry pairs a plain-language definition with concrete guidance and the tool that helps.
Who writes these definitions?
Science AI Journal's editorial team. The definitions are grounded in widely accepted standards — for example the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) guidance — and written to be genuinely useful to a researcher deciding what to do next, not just dictionary entries.