How to Check if a Journal is Indexed

Today, I’ll show you how to check whether a journal is indexed in the top research databases.

Checking the indexing status of a journal saves you from predatory journals, and publishing in indexed journals increases your credibility and visibility.

Most people search for previous literature/ scholarly work on databases such as MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed Central, Web of Science, Scopus, or DOAJ.

You are more likely to get cited if they find your article there during their search.

So in this newsletter, I’ll show you how to check if a journal of your interest is indexed in these databases. Let’s get started:

---

1. MEDLINE

1. Go to https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog

2. Type the journal title or ISSN on the search box

3. The journal details will be shown if it is in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) catalog

4. Check the “Current indexing status.” Indexed journal shows “Currently indexed for MEDLINE”

---

2. EMBASE

1. Go to https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/embase-biomedical-research/coverage-and-content

2. Click on the hypertext - “Download the full list of journal titles in Embase” -

3. On the spreadsheet, search the journal title or ISSN

4. On the corresponding row of the journal, the indexed journal shows “Yes” on the “Indexed at Embase” column

   ---

3. PubMed Central (PMC)

1. Go to https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals

2. Type the journal title on the search box below “Search for journals”

3. On the search result page, the indexed journal shows “Full” in the “Participation level” column

   ---

4. Web of Science

1. Go to https://mjl.clarivate.com/home

2. Type the journal title or ISSN on the search box and click on “Search Journals”

3. On the search result page, indexed journal title shows “Science Citation Index Expanded” against “Web of Science Core Collection”

5. Scopus

1. 1. Go to https://scopus.com/sources

2. Select “Title” or “ISSN” from the dropdown arrow and type the title or ISSN accordingly and click on the “Find sources” button

3. From the search result, click on the target journal title

4. The indexed journal shows the “Scopus coverage years”

6. Directory of Open Access Journals

1. Go to https://doaj.org

2. Uncheck the “articles” below the search box

3. Type the title or International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) of the journal in the search box

4. The indexed journal will be shown on the search result page.