The publication of core journals is the first level for graduate students. Because most colleges and universities now require master students and doctoral students to publish a certain number of core journals (that is, small papers before graduation thesis), allowing them to defend their graduation.

There are two versions of core journals: one is Peking University Core, commonly known as China Core, which is selected by Peking University and evaluated every four years; The other is the core of the Guide, that is, the periodicals included in the Citation Index of Chinese Social Sciences, that is, the periodicals included in CSSCI, which are selected by Nanjing University and evaluated every two years. Both have a large number of re-reading logs, and each school has different requirements. There are also some schools that are classified into Class A, Class B and Class C periodicals according to their research direction and similar majors with leading scientific research units.