Academic journal is an important medium of research publication and academic exchange .The academic journal evaluation system in China has been initially established ,but quality and innovativeness evaluations are still weak .There are profound socio-economic ,cultural ,administrative reasons for this problem ,which have caused negative impact on the value orientation of scholars and their research behavior ,affected the objectivity and impartiality of academic evaluation ,and undermined the cleanness and pureness of the academia . Scholars of the humanities and social sciences and library and information science experts have already reached a consensus that academic evaluation in the humanities and social sciences should be more diverse ,localized and content-based ,and there should be quality and innovativeness evaluations .In the past dozen years ,academic journal evaluation is mainly quantitative and formal ,but now more emphasis should be placed on content evaluation and innovativeness evaluation to create a fair and free environment for academic journal evaluation . On the premise of maintaining the reasonable elements in the existing academic journal evaluation system ,this article proposes a combination of three new concepts including formal evaluation ,content evaluation and effectiveness evaluation ,and puts forward a new evaluation method integrating peer- review and bibliometric evaluation .The proposed combination of the three new concepts would be able to explain the history and the current situation of journal evaluation ,and also predict its future .The aim of the new thinking and the approach to realize it is to overcome the institutional obstacles that hinder the healthy development of academic evaluation ,to establish a fair and rational academic environment for scholars ,and to create an open and constructive academic environment in the future .