Choosing a Venue for Cultural Heritage, History and Philosophy: Quartile, Index and Fee Side by Side

A historian receives an invitation from a well-known AHCI history journal: publication within two weeks, an APC of 450 US dollars, contact via a free email address. The journal was real. The site was not. She spotted it on the first line, because she knew something about her field that the clone did not.

Humanities journals are especially easy to imitate, because many are run by small editorial teams on simple websites, and authors in the field are used to journals that look modest online. Knowing what the real ones look like is the best defence. In this humanities and social science list, the tables are grouped by cost first, because most respected titles here charge no APC.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Humanities journals sit mainly in AHCI, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, with history of science and economic history also in SCIE and SSCI. Impact factors in the humanities are low by design, because books matter and citations accumulate slowly. A journal with an impact factor under 2 can be among the most respected in its discipline, as Philosophy of Science shows. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago; the JCR quartile from Clarivate. Settling which index your rule names is part of Journal Submission Preparation.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Three agriculture journals appeared in the source data for this post and are left out, since they belong in our agriculture list.

Indexed conference routes in heritage and history

Humanities conferences rarely publish indexed proceedings. These five are the exceptions, mostly on the digital and engineering side of heritage.

From conference paper to journal article in the humanities

Most humanities conference papers are twenty-minute talks that are never published, which makes the journal article the real output. The gap between the two is large.

1. Length. A conference talk is roughly 3,000 words. A journal article in history or philosophy is usually 8,000 to 12,000, so the article is a new piece of writing, not an edited talk.
2. Sources. Historians expect the full archival base, with every primary source cited precisely. A talk can summarise; an article must document.
3. Historiography and literature. The article must place its argument within existing scholarship in detail, including recent work in other languages where relevant.
4. The argument sharpened. Reviewers look for a clear claim that changes how something is understood, stated early and defended throughout.
5. If the conference published full papers. Where proceedings are indexed, such as the digital heritage series above, the journal version needs substantial new material and should cite the proceedings paper openly.
6. Edited volumes. A paper promised to a conference volume cannot also go to a journal. Decide early which route you want.

Developing a talk into an article is part of Manuscript Preparation Support, and the revision round is Review & Response Support.

Articles, books and chapters: what counts in the humanities

In most sciences the journal article is the unit of credit. In history, philosophy and heritage studies, the monograph often carries more weight, and chapters in edited volumes are common. That changes how you should plan.

1. Check what your rule counts. Many universities outside the humanities count only indexed journal articles, which disadvantages humanists. If your rule is written that way, the tables on this page are the route that will count.
2. Chapters are rarely indexed individually. Some book series are covered by Scopus or the Book Citation Index, but most edited volumes are not, so a chapter may not satisfy an indexing requirement.
3. A thesis can become both. A very common path is two or three journal articles from the strongest chapters, then a monograph that develops the whole argument. Check the book publisher's policy on previously published material before submitting the articles.
4. Reviews and review essays. Book reviews are valued service but rarely count as research outputs. A review essay that engages several books critically sometimes does.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

Which humanities journals accept secondary data or publicly available datasets?

All of them, and in the humanities that usually means archives, digitised collections, published editions, museum records and databases such as census or trade records. Cite collections precisely, with archive, series and item numbers. Journals increasingly ask where digitised sources can be accessed.

Do I need ethics approval for a humanities paper using open data?

Usually not for archival or published sources. Approval is needed for oral history interviews, ethnography, and research with living communities, including indigenous and descendant communities connected to heritage sites. Some countries also require permits for archaeological fieldwork, which are separate from ethics approval.

Can I publish a humanities paper without collecting primary data?

Yes, and most humanities research does not collect data in the scientific sense. Philosophy, intellectual history, textual analysis and historiography all work from existing texts. What reviewers require is an original argument, not new data.

What is the CAS partition, and how is it different from the JCR quartile?

The CAS partition, published yearly by the National Science Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sorts journals into Zones 1 to 4, with Zone 1 holding the top five percent of a subject. The JCR quartile splits a list into four equal quarters. CAS coverage of arts and humanities journals is more limited than for the sciences, so check whether your humanities journal is covered at all before relying on it.

Do Chinese universities accept Scopus Q1, or only CAS Zone 1 and 2?

Practice varies by institution, and in the humanities it varies more than elsewhere. Many Chinese universities weight AHCI and SSCI listings and their own internal lists more heavily than Scopus. Get the written rule before choosing a venue.

How do Chinese institutions rank humanities journals?

For Chinese-language work the main list is CSSCI, the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index, alongside institutional lists. For English-language work, AHCI and SSCI listings usually count most, sometimes with CAS zones where they apply.

How much does it cost to publish a humanities paper in an indexed journal?

Almost always nothing. Nine Diamond titles and thirty subscription titles here charge no APC, which covers nearly every senior journal in the field. Where an APC applies, the range is 200 to 3,655 US dollars.

What is the difference between ESCI and SSCI when my university asks for a Web of Science paper?

Both belong to the Web of Science Core Collection. SSCI and AHCI are established citation indexes; ESCI covers journals that passed quality screening but not the full citation criteria. In the humanities, check whether your rule names AHCI specifically, because many history and philosophy journals sit there rather than in SSCI.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. In the humanities a further check is common: whether quotations from primary sources are accurate, translated consistently and cited to archive, series and item. Run your own overlap check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker, and use the AI Journal Finder to confirm the journal's scope matches your abstract before you submit.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when an argument will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it. Language and translation of sources is Manuscript Editing, planning a thesis into articles is the Mentorship Program, collaborators with archive access are Collaboration Matching, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about quartiles

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。