How good is a publication in a low-impact journal?

[dr_asdrubal]

How much better does your application look if you have a few publications in a low-impact peer-reviewed journal? I've heard here on SDN that impact factor is field-dependent, and that a low impact journal in a small field might still be as good as something in a highly regarded journal with a very high impact factor.

Also, will it be viewed in a poor light if the research is not the traditional wet lab/bench work? For example, if someone is doing research in field like chemistry education how would that look?

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[futureapppsy2]

Should still help as long as it's not a predatory, pay-to-publish journal.

 

[Catalystik]

will it be viewed in a poor light if the research is not the traditional wet lab/bench work? For example, if someone is doing research in field like chemistry education how would that look?

So long as the research you did is hypothesis-based, used the scientific method, and resulted in new generalizable knowledge, any discipline is acceptable.

 

[stubblesmcgee]

Should still help as long as it's not a predatory, pay-to-publish journal.

This. No one is expecting you to be publishing in high IF journals as a young researcher anyway. And yes, IF is highly dependent on the field.

 

[OdysseanUnderdog]

Are predatory journals still much of a thing? Someone told me if it's got papers indexed on PubMed, it's not predatory. Is that the key?

Pay-to-publish online open access journals started out pretty sketchy, but many are actually quite reputable now, e.g. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (JAD). Sure, they're still not as prestigious as Nature, but many of them are still a valid and important part of the scientific literature. In fact, before it had become clear that anti-amyloid and anti-tau therapies do not treat Alzheimer's disease, mainstream journals were reluctant to publish results that challenged the amyloid hypothesis. It was often open access journals like JAD that stepped up to publish such papers. Dr. De La Monte (of "Alzheimer's disease is type 3 diabetes" fame) wrote a great editorial about this history earlier this year in JAD.

 

[smukke]

To paraphrase something I've learned in training "It's ok not to publish in Nature/Science/NEJM, it's not ok to not publish at all"

As long as you aren't trying to build a research career solely on crap publications, no one will care.

Are predatory journals still much of a thing? Someone told me if it's got papers indexed on PubMed, it's not predatory. Is that the key?

Pay-to-publish online open access journals started out pretty sketchy, but many are actually quite reputable now, e.g. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (JAD). Sure, they're still not as prestigious as Nature, but many of them are still a valid and important part of the scientific literature. In fact, before it had become clear that anti-amyloid and anti-tau therapies do not treat Alzheimer's disease, mainstream journals were reluctant to publish results that challenged the amyloid hypothesis. It was often open access journals like JAD that stepped up to publish such papers. Dr. De La Monte (of "Alzheimer's disease is type 3 diabetes" fame) wrote a great editorial about this history earlier this year in JAD.

If anything, they are proliferating and even established researchers publish in them (either accidentally, or more cynically by design to avoid being scooped or to just get something out to justify a grant)
There Are Now 8,000 Fake Science ‘Journals’ Worldwide, Researchers Say

 

[OdysseanUnderdog]

To paraphrase something I've learned in training "It's ok not to publish in Nature/Science/NEJM, it's not ok to not publish at all"

As long as you aren't trying to build a research career solely on crap publications, no one will care.



If anything, they are proliferating and even established researchers publish in them (either accidentally, or more cynically by design to avoid being scooped or to just get something out to justify a grant)

Thank you.

 

[Goro]

Its better than no publication. Any other comment would be pure speculation

This. Pubs are rare for UG students.

And predatory journals are definitely a thing. I get junk mail from them at least 10 to 20 times a day in my email inbox

 

[efle]

Depends what you mean by low impact. Some of the main journals for subspecialty niches have relatively low impact factors - examples would be that the biggest journals specific to ENT or plastics have impacts of ~3. That's very different from some brand new open access journal with IF below one that nobody in any specialty has ever heard of.

 

[Phile98]

In my time at SDN, this is a small list of what I've noticed about research excellence.
Note: Importance goes down in a descending order.

1. Do you have a publication?
(yes - GREAT, you're part of a select group)
(no - that's ok, you can excel in other areas)
2. Original Research or Review
(research - GREAT, you've shown the ability to use the scientific method to uncover (hopefully) novel findings)
(review - GOOD, you've shown that you're experienced with the literature in the area)
3. # Author
(1st - SUPER, you've just shown that you can lead the production of scientific work, which is quite an accomplishment)
(2nd - EXCELLENT, you've shown that you can contribute significantly to an investigation)
(3rd and on - GOOD, you've produced some results and are productive)
4. Journal IF
(Nature, Science, NEJM, Lancet etc - AMAZING, this is extremely hard to do so you must have produced amazing results)
(Anything else until atleast PLOS one, Scientific reports - EXCELLENT, you underwent a proper peer review process and published a well-received paper)

*note, I am very very early in (what's probably going to be a short) scientific career, so take my 2c with a grain of salt.

 

[MissGamerMD]

I had 2 first-author publications in mid-tier journals from UG and they gave me bonus points at several schools I applied to. Others said they "looked favorably on scientific publications" but gave no more details than that. My papers were entirely, 150% unrelated to anything medical.
As others have mentioned, any publications that aren't BS journals are great and can only help your publication.