Where to publish your article: find journals from your abstract
Paste the abstract and the tool searches Crossref for articles on the same topic, then ranks the journals that published them by fit with your paper.
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What this solves
The Journal Finder reads the abstract you paste, extracts keywords, research area and methodology, and then searches Crossref for articles on the same topic to see which journals published them. Each candidate gets a score from 0 to 100 with one sentence explaining the fit, ordered from most to least compatible.
How it works
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Paste the abstract
The abstract needs at least 100 characters and is read up to 5,000. The more specific the text, the more precise the search terms.
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Narrow it with filters
Optional filters for country, open or closed access, publication language and publisher (Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, MDPI and others) narrow the ranking.
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Read the ranked list
Each journal shows score, publisher, ISSN and one sentence on the fit, with links to the ISSN Portal and Crossref. A search costs 25 credits.
Method
What happens to your file, step by step, and where the result stops being a decision made by a model.
How it works inside
The abstract goes to gpt-4.1-nano, which returns keywords, research area, sub-areas, methodology and 5 search queries as JSON. Each query, plus one built from the top 5 keywords, queries Crossref /works at 50 rows filtered to journal-article; results are aggregated by ISSN within a query and by title across queries, with a hit count. Under 5 results, /journals is tried as fallback. The top 10 journals get their 3 most cited articles attached, then up to 200 candidates return to the model for scoring.
Where AI is used, and where it is not
The model decides the substance here. It writes the search queries that determine which journals Crossref returns at all, and it assigns every score from 0 to 100 along with the one-line reason. No score is computed from a metric. Crossref supplies the candidate list, article counts and ISSN links, which are deterministic. Country, open access, language and publisher filters are prompt instructions the model applies from journal and publisher names, not database fields.
What it accepts
- An abstract pasted as text, at least 100 characters. Anything past 5,000 is cut; the model reads the first 4,000 when extracting keywords and the first 3,000 when ranking.
- An optional Country filter with 30 countries to choose from.
- Optional filters for access (open or closed), publication language (8 options) and publisher (15 named publishers).
- No file upload and no separate title, keyword or reference-list field. The abstract is the only input that drives the search.
What you get back
- A ranked list of journals: a score from 0 to 100, a one-sentence reason, publisher, ISSN, and links to the ISSN Portal and to Crossref search; subject-area tags appear only on the unranked extras that come straight from Crossref.
- The extracted analysis: keywords, research area, sub-areas and methodology. The 5 search queries are stored with the search, but the results page does not display them.
- Candidates the model left out of its ranking are appended with score 0 and marked unranked instead of being hidden.
- Counts of candidates found and journals listed. The page shows the first 25 and expands on click.
- The search is saved to your history with its own page link and reopened from there. There is no CSV or spreadsheet export.
What this tool does not do
- It does not use impact factor, JCR, Scopus, SJR, DOAJ or Qualis. None of those sources is queried anywhere in the code.
- The score is a model opinion, not a computed metric. Two runs of the same abstract can differ, because the search queries themselves are generated on each run.
- The country, open access and language labels come from the model reading publisher and journal names. Crossref supplies no country field here and nothing is verified.
- It does not flag predatory journals, does not check indexing, and does not know whether a journal is open for submissions. The Active label only means the journal turned up in a Crossref search.
- It does not read scope statements or author guidelines, does not estimate acceptance odds or article charges, and does not guarantee the journal accepts your paper.
- Plan
- Starter
- Cost
- 25 credits
What you get
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Candidates come from published articles
The search looks for real articles on your topic in Crossref and takes the journals that published them, instead of matching against a fixed catalogue.
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A score with a stated reason
Every journal gets a score from 0 to 100 and one sentence on the fit. The weights are topic alignment, publication volume, reputation signals and methodology.
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Filters for the limits you actually have
Country, open or closed access, publication language and publisher, for when your program, funder or co-authors limit where the article can go.
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Searches stay in your history
Each search gets its own page in your history, which you can rename and reopen, so you can compare rounds before choosing where to submit.
Changelog
Every line below is a change that actually shipped, dated by the day it went out.
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Latest
- A search saved inside a project is now recorded in that project.
Show 5 earlier updates
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- Opening the tool now requires an active plan: credit balance alone does not grant access.
- The access blocked message now shows in Portuguese when the site is in Portuguese.
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- Tool messages follow the site language, so the English version reads in English.
- With an expired trial, the tool sends you to the credits page with the reason.
- The main page of the tool now requires login before it opens.
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- The search now uses five queries and up to 200 journals, up from three and 100.
- The results page shows 25 journals before hiding the rest, up from 10.
- Journals found in Crossref but left out of the ranking now appear at the end.
- Whether a journal is active now comes from Crossref records, not from an AI guess.
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- Saved searches are titled with Brasília time instead of the server clock.
- Running a search and opening the history now require being logged in.
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- Journal Finder launched: paste your abstract and get journals ranked by fit.
- Each result opens a page with statistics and the reason for each journal.
- Searches are kept in history, so you can reopen a previous result.
Questions and answers
What is the ranking based on?
On the Crossref metadata of each journal: title, publisher, subjects, article counts and a sample of its most cited titles, weighed by an AI model against your abstract. It does not read the journal's scope page or author guidelines.
Does it use impact factor or Qualis?
No. Impact factor, JCR quartile, Scopus and Qualis are not part of the score, because none of them come from Crossref. Check those indicators yourself before deciding where to submit.
Are the open access and country filters reliable?
They are applied by the AI from clues in the journal and publisher names, not from DOAJ or an official registry. Use them as a first cut and confirm the access model on the journal's own site.
Is my abstract used to train AI models?
It is sent to OpenAI's paid API, which under its published API policy does not use that content to train models. The request carries no name, e-mail or account identifier, only the abstract text.
How to cite this tool
Used it in your research? Here is the reference, already filled in with the version you are looking at and today's access date.
ABNT (NBR 6023)
LESSA, P. W. B. Journal Finder. Versão 2026.08. [S. l.]: Xplore Dados, 2026. Disponível em: https://xploredados.com/en/tool/journal-finder. Acesso em: 21 ago. 2026.
APA 7
Lessa, P. W. B. (2026). Journal Finder (Version 2026.08) [Computer software]. Xplore Dados. https://xploredados.com/en/tool/journal-finder
BibTeX
@software{xploredados_journal_finder_2026,
author = {Lessa, Patrick Wendell Barbosa},
title = {Journal Finder},
organization = {Xplore Dados},
version = {2026.08},
year = {2026},
url = {https://xploredados.com/en/tool/journal-finder},
urldate = {2026-08-21}
}
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