Can you identify the publisher? Are they affiliated with an organization you're familiar with? Is there contact information present?
Do the affiliations & backgrounds of the editorial board and authors publishing in the journal appear to be appropriate for the subject matter of the journal?
Are articles peer-reviewed?
Does the journal have an ISSN, and do articles have DOIs?
Are the journal's copyright policies & any fees to publish clear? If you'd like to publish open access, are there options?
Is the journal indexed in a database that you use? Some places to check:
Scopus for journals in the social sciences and STEM fields and journal rankings
SciFinder for journals in Chemistry and related fields (select "Journal" under the References bar)
Journals referenced in NCBI Databases for life sciences, biomedical, clinical, and public/community health journals - look specifically for journals indexed in MEDLINE (PubMed).
JSTOR for journals spanning the arts, humanities, social sciences, and sciences (scroll down and search using the "Publication Title" search box)
You can also look at the Think Check Submit checklist, use a journal evaluation tool [pdf], or talk to your Subject Specialist! We can help identify potential journals related to your field, and offer a number of tools that may help you locate an appropriate journal.
See also the steps to check if a journal is predatory.
Suiter, A. M., & Sarli, C. C. (2019). Selecting a Journal for Publication: Criteria to Consider. Missouri Medicine, 116(6), 461–465. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913840/
Meredith Kahn, "Sharing your scholarship while avoiding the predators: Guidelines for medical physicists interested in open access publishing," Medical Physics 41, no. 7 (July 2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1118/1.4883836.
