Guides @ UF: Urology Resources: Journals & Databases

Relevant Databases

Listed below are a few databases that might be useful when beginning your information search. For a more complete list, please see our page of Library Databases.

Searching the Literature for Research

PubMed This link opens in a new window
PubMed comprises more than 25 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.
Embase This link opens in a new window
Embase indexes some of the same biomedical literature as PubMed, but also 6,000 unique journals. Embase is particularly useful for pharmaceutical or medical device searches.
Scopus This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive, curated abstract and citation database with enriched data and linked scholarly literature across a wide variety of disciplines.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
The Web of Science® (formerly Web of Knowledge) is today's premier research platform, helping you quickly find, analyze, and share information in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities.

Evidence-Based Practice

UpToDate This link opens in a new window
UpToDate is an evidence-based, physician-authored clinical decision support resource which clinicians consult when making point-of-care decisions. An editorial team condenses the most recent medical information into evidence-based recommendations to improve patient care and quality.
Courtesy of the College of Medicine Office of Graduate Medical Education
MICROMEDEX Healthcare Series This link opens in a new window
MICROMEDEX is an excellent source of drug indication, dosage, drug interaction and side effect information, as well as poison control information. It covers all FDA approved medications as well as a database of alternative medicines.
AccessMedicine This link opens in a new window
AccessMedicine offers instant access to videos, self-assessment, an image library and leading medical textbooks that facilitate decision-making at the point-of-care to ensure the best patient outcome.

Finding Reputable Journals

Vetting Journals to Find Appropriate Places to Publish

Finding an appropriate journal to publish your research ensures that your research will be discoverable and have an impact in your field. New journals and new publishers are being launched annually, so it can be difficult to determine which journals are reputable and which are suspect. Before you submit your articles to a journal, consider using the following resource:

Think.Check.Submit
A checklist of information to confirm or locate when assessing a journal as an appropriate place to submit your research publications.

Selecting a Journal with an Appropriate Impact Factor

The impact factor of a journal is a measurement that reflects the average number of times that articles in a particular journal have been cited. The measurement changes from year to year, and is based on data from the previous two years, so new journals--while potentially still relevant and reputable--will have low impact factors due to the small amount of available data. This measurement is often used to estimate the relative importance of a journal in its particular science or social science field.

A higher impact factor predicts that your research is more discoverable and more likely to be shared widely in the field if you publish in that journal. However

for early career researchers, journals with lower impact factors might be more reasonable places to publish as they are less competitive than the more well-known journals and can still be vetted as reputable
for very specialized areas of research with small pools of global researchers, journals will always have smaller impact factors, as fewer people are citing this more specialized work

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) This link opens in a new window
To locate the impact factor of a particular journal:
* Go to Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
* Select the option to "Search for a specific journal."
* Type in the journal title
* Click the Search button.
Journal Citation Reports (JCR) This link opens in a new window
To create a list of journals in a particular field:
* Go to Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
* Select the option to "View a group of journals by subject category."
* Select the relevant subject category
* Click the Submit button.
You can sort by journal title or impact factor.

Please note: Not all journals are included in JCR and so every journal may not have an impact factor. There are also many other considerations for determining the importance and quality of a journal beyond the impact factor.