Mega-Journals: Are They Right for Your Paper?

A mega-journal will not ask whether your result is important, only whether it is sound. That changes which of your papers belong there and which do not.

Explainer · 8 min read · Directive Publications Editorial Team

What makes a journal a mega-journal

The term describes a publishing model, not a quality grade. Researchers who study these journals usually define mega-journals by four features that appear together:

1. Scale. They publish, or aim to publish, a very large number of articles.
2. Broad scope. One title covers many disciplines rather than a single specialty.
3. Soundness-only peer review. Papers are judged on whether the research is rigorous, not on whether it seems important or novel.
4. Open access, usually funded by article processing charges (APCs).

PLOS ONE, launched in 2006, is generally treated as the original. Titles often discussed alongside it in research on the model include Scientific Reports, BMJ Open and PeerJ.

Broad scope alone does not make a mega-journal. Many general medical journals cover every specialty but still select papers on significance. The review criterion is the feature that matters for your decision, and journals apply it in different ways, so read each title's own criteria rather than relying on the label.

What soundness-only peer review checks

At a selective journal, a sound paper can still be rejected because the editor judges it not important enough for the readership. A mega-journal removes that question. PLOS ONE says it evaluates research on scientific validity, strong methodology and high ethical standards, "not perceived significance". Scientific Reports describes its editorial process as focused on robustness and validity from methodological, analytical, statistical and ethical perspectives.

Everything else is still assessed. PLOS ONE's seven criteria for publication require original results not published elsewhere, analyses performed to a high technical standard and described in enough detail to reproduce, conclusions supported by the data, intelligible writing, ethical conduct, and adherence to reporting guidelines and data availability standards.

What this means for how you write. In a large international survey, two-thirds of mega-journal authors believed their journal had taken novelty, significance and relevance into account (Wakeling et al., 2019). Avoid that mistake when you prepare the submission. Arguing that a result is groundbreaking buys you nothing, while any claim that outruns the data is exactly what the review will test. PLOS ONE states that submissions will be rejected if the interpretation of results is unjustified, and asks that possible implications be clearly identified as hypotheses. Before you submit, reread the abstract and discussion and cut any sentence that says more than your results show.

Papers that suit a mega-journal

The strongest candidates are papers whose value lies in their rigour rather than in how surprising the result is.

• Null and negative results. PLOS ONE considers them in keeping with its aim of publishing all valid research. If these studies tend to stay in a drawer in your lab, our post on why negative and null results matter makes the case for publishing them.
• Replications, provided you give a sound scientific rationale and discuss the earlier work. PLOS ONE warns that replications without adequate justification will likely be rejected.
• Solid work for a narrow audience that a specialty journal declined as a low priority, where the reviews raised no serious methodological objections.
• Interdisciplinary studies that sit awkwardly between the scopes of specialty journals.
• Methods, software, databases, protocols and registered reports, where the journal lists them as article types. PLOS ONE does.

Transfers deserve a note. About half of the mega-journal articles in the survey above had been submitted elsewhere first, with some evidence of manuscripts cascading between journals from the same publisher. PLOS, for example, lets authors request that a manuscript rejected by one of its journals be transferred to another, with reviewer reports where relevant. Treat a transfer offer as a new submission to a different journal: check that journal's criteria, article types and fee before you agree, because a transfer is further consideration, not acceptance.

Papers that belong somewhere else

A mega-journal is a poor fit in five common situations.

• Your article type is excluded. PLOS ONE does not consider clinical case reports, commentaries, opinion pieces, clinical practice guidelines or, unless commissioned, reviews other than systematic reviews. Check the article-type list before anything else.
• Your main contribution is significance. If the paper's case rests on changing how a field thinks, the editorial judgement of a selective specialty journal is part of the signal you want readers to see.
• You need a defined clinical readership. A journal covering many fields has no single audience browsing each issue, so your paper will mostly be found through searches, alerts and citations. That puts more weight on your title, abstract and keywords.
• The manuscript still needs language polishing. PLOS ONE states that it does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the text you submit must already be clear and correct.
• You have no route to the fee. The model usually depends on APCs. Check waivers and institutional agreements before you submit; our guide to APC waivers and funding language explains what to ask.

Check indexing title by title

Indexing belongs to a journal, not to a publishing model, and it can change after you choose.

PubMed. NLM does not accept applications to PubMed itself. Journals reach it through MEDLINE or PubMed Central, which have separate selection processes. Search the journal in the NLM Catalog and read the "Current Indexing Status" line, which tells you whether it is currently indexed for MEDLINE.

Scopus and Web of Science. Look the title up in the Scopus source list and in the Web of Science Master Journal List. Both services re-evaluate journals they already cover. Scopus lists outlier or unexpected publishing performance among the reasons a title can be flagged, and suspends new content while it re-evaluates. Web of Science can place a journal "on hold" while it re-evaluates, which pauses indexing of new content and is shown in the Master Journal List. Journals that no longer meet the criteria can be discontinued or delisted, although Scopus keeps content it had already indexed.

The working rule: check all three sources yourself on the day you submit rather than relying on the journal's own indexing page, and check again before you pay if months have passed.

Promotion and career perceptions

There is no universal answer, so find out rather than assume.

• Read your institution's criteria. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recommends that institutions make clear, especially for early-stage investigators, that the scientific content of a paper matters much more than publication metrics or the identity of the journal. Whether your own committee works that way is a question for your promotion guidelines, not for the declaration.
• Ask your co-authors, especially trainees. The venue decision affects everyone on the byline. Some national and institutional reward schemes still favour high impact factor journals, and a first author applying for a fellowship may be judged differently from you.
• Make the case at article level. In a dossier, describe the question, the design and your contribution, and cite evidence about the paper itself, such as citations and downloads. PLOS ONE, for instance, shows article-level metrics such as views and downloads on each article it publishes.

Vet the specific title before you submit

Broad scope, quick decisions and author-paid fees are also easy features for a low-quality outlet to copy. Before you submit to any high-volume, broad-scope journal, confirm:

1. Published criteria for publication that you can check your paper against
2. Named editors with verifiable affiliations, and a described handling process
3. Your article type on the journal's list
4. Indexing confirmed in the NLM Catalog, the Scopus source list or the Master Journal List, not only on the journal's website
5. The APC, licence and waiver policy stated before submission
6. Corrections and retractions visible on published articles
7. Three recent papers in your field that you would be comfortable citing

If any item fails, work through our 12 red flags for predatory journals before going further.

A three-question decision rule

1. Does the paper's value come from its rigour rather than from how surprising the result is?
2. Does the journal accept your article type, and do its recent papers in your field meet the standard you hold your own work to?
3. Will the people who evaluate you and your co-authors credit the venue?

Three yeses make a mega-journal a sensible first choice rather than a fallback. A no to the first question points towards a selective specialty journal. A no to the second or third points towards a different title.

Whichever model you choose, read how a journal describes its review before you submit. Directive Publications sets out what its reviewers assess on its peer review process page, and its For Authors page gathers the author guidance you need to prepare a manuscript.