Research is a key output area, or substantive process in the functioning of higher education institutions. It interacts harmoniously with teaching and university extension, to achieve quality and integration of the university with society. Research is not concluded until its results are published, even if they are not important and novel, without publication, science does not exist. Ideally, it should be published in indexed journals and, better still, in journals with a high impact factor, which influences the quality, scope and scientific level of the work. These publications are verified, evaluated, replicated and rapidly incorporated into scientific knowledge.

University professors and researchers should publish their results in indexed journals, especially those with a high impact factor, because this stratifies and selects scientists, giving them recognition and economic status. It also allows them to achieve relevant achievements, to advance smoothly in their scientific career, to achieve rapid academic promotion and to obtain funding for grants and research projects.

The University or Research Centre whose professors or researchers publish in high impact factor journals would occupy prominent positions in the various rankings that measure their performance and, therefore, would receive greater recognition, which would be proportional to the level of their publications. In addition, they could more easily sign international agreements and obtain financial resources for new research projects.

All journals are constantly working to achieve indexing and maintain a work towards increasing their level, reaching and raising the impact factor. This is expressed as the average number of times a published article is cited, calculated as the ratio of the number of citations received in the last 2 years prior to the current year, divided by the total number of articles in the same period.

The higher the impact factor of a journal, the greater the probability that the work can be cited, and thus have a greater impact on researchers and their institutions. This indicator, although not essential, should be taken into account, as it considers the citation frequency of a journal and, consequently, is a reflection of its visibility and influence in the scientific community. It is also the main criterion for evaluating journals and, therefore, the researchers who publish in them. It is used to rank journals and a high impact factor is synonymous with the quality, importance and scientific prestige of a journal and its researchers.

Despite the advantages of publishing in indexed journals with a high impact factor, many teachers and researchers fail to do so, even when they have research with high scientific rigour and innovative results. The main reasons for this are: i) incorrect choice of journals, ii) errors and carelessness in the formal presentation of the manuscript, iii) adoption of the wrong approach in the approach to the work, iv) gaps in the scientific writing, v) inexperience in responding to the comments and suggestions of editors and reviewers.

The selection of a journal, in order to increase the chances of publishing an article, with greater brevity, begins with the assessment of the scope and coverage, selecting those whose topics and typology are in line with the manuscript to be published, especially those that publish topics that the authors are specialists in.

Other factors to consider are the impact factor of a journal, the time period between submission, refereeing, acceptance and publication of articles, its periodicity and the number of articles per issue and the acceptance/rejection rate of the journal. As the manuscript may be rejected, a choice of at least 3 journals should be considered.

Once the journal has been selected, authors should adopt some strategies to have their work accepted, including identifying the aims of their work and the relationship with the journal's content. Cite, whenever appropriate, in the introduction and discussion the articles published in the journal to which you will submit your manuscript, especially in the last 2 years, this will contribute to increase the impact factor of that journal and, therefore, there will be more chances that your work will be accepted.

In addition, you should involve trusted, experienced colleagues in the authorship of the paper, who have a high level of knowledge of scientific publications in their field and are linked to the journal, as long as ethical principles are not violated and they contribute substantially to the conception and design of the study, to obtaining analysis and interpretation of the data, write the draft of the article, critically review it, making important contributions to the content and approve the final version¹.

On many occasions, errors and oversights in the formal presentation of the manuscript are detected in manuscripts, related to the order of the signing authors, which does not conform to what is established in most scientific journals, causing delays in the publication or rejection of the work^1,2.

Tscharntke et al.³ state that the first author is the one who conceived the work, planned and led the execution in its different phases. The second, third, others are those who write the article, provide substantive comments or perform specialized tasks. The last one is the one who critically reviews the manuscript and certifies that the article is ready for submission; this position corresponds to experienced researchers⁴.