Impact Factor and Journal Rep

[premeddick]

What is the best way to decide how "good" a journal is? Is it based on impact factor?

Would anything over 20 be "Great"
Anything 10-20 be "Good"
Anything 5-10 be "Average"
Anything 0-5 be "Mediocre"

What do you all think?

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[Circumflex]

What is the best way to decide how "good" a journal is? Is it based on impact factor?

Would anything over 20 be "Great"
Anything 10-20 be "Good"
Anything 5-10 be "Average"
Anything 0-5 be "Mediocre"

What do you all think?

Yes, generally the higher the impact factor, the better for you. But, some journals in specialty areas (cardiovascular, renal, etc.) may not have a high impact factor, but are considered "prestigious" for a specific field. Also, you want to consider what audience you are trying to reach. Most people will read a few broad journals (Science, Nature, Cell, etc.) and then read journals within their specialty area.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

What is the best way to decide how "good" a journal is? Is it based on impact factor?

Would anything over 20 be "Great"
Anything 10-20 be "Good"
Anything 5-10 be "Average"
Anything 0-5 be "Mediocre"

What do you all think?

There's less than 50 journals with impact factors greater than 10, and less than 150 greater than 5. I would rank it more generously, something like:

Over 20 (Nature, Science) Unbelievable
10-20 (Neuron, Lancet) Awesome
5-10 (JBC, AIM) Very Good
2-5 (Anesthesiology, Neurology) Good
0-2 Average

And as mentioned previously, most of the top journals in medical specialties top out at around 5, but having a publication in those would be awesome for your match potential in that field.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

What is the best way to decide how "good" a journal is? Is it based on impact factor?

Would anything over 20 be "Great"
Anything 10-20 be "Good"
Anything 5-10 be "Average"
Anything 0-5 be "Mediocre"

What do you all think?

There are also rankings for journals within a given field..... below is a compiled list of IFs for medical journals, some of which have ranks listed within their given fields.

New England Journal of Medicine 44.016
Journal of Experimental Medicine 15.302
Journal of Clinical Investigation 15.053
Annals of Internal Medicine 13.254
Circulation 11.632
PNAS 10.7
Blood 10.131
Circulation Research 9.408
Hepatology 9.3825
BMJ 9.052
American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 8.123 #1
Archives of Internal Medicine 8
Clinical Chemistry 7.717
Gut 7.692
Brain 7.535
Canadian Medical Association Journal 7.4
European Heart Journal 7.341
Journal of the American Society of Nephrology 7.24
Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology
Annals of Rheumatic Diseases 6.956
Annals of Surgery 5.937 1 of 141
Thorax 6.15 #2
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 6.02 #8
American Journal of Transplantation 6.002 #1
Emerging Infectious Diseases 5.968 3 of 36
Stroke 5.855
American Journal of Pathology 5.796
Endocrinology 5.313 #12 of 89
Journal of Virology 5.178
Critical Care Medicine 5.077 #3 of 17
American Journal of Epidemiology 5.068
Medicine 5.057
Journal of Hepatology 4.974
Neurology 4.947
Archives of Neurology 4.9
Haematologica 4.575
Annals of Oncology 4.319
Pediatrics 4.272 #1 in field
Liver Transplantation 4.242
Rheumatology 4.226 #3 of 22
Journal of Bacteriology 4.167 #16 of 86
International Journal of Epidemiology 4.045
Epidemiology 4.043
Journal of Internal Medicine 4.04
CHEST 4.008
Anesthesiology 4.005
Mayo Clinic Proceedings 3.933
Infection and Immunity 3.933 #8 of 43
Transplantation 3.879
Journal of Pediatrics 3.837
Heart 3.786
Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 3.727
Intensive Care Medicine 3.724
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 3.6
Journal of Urology 3.592
Annals of Surgical Oncology 3.574
American Journal of Public Health 3.566
American Heart Journal 3.552
Journal of Clinical Microbiology 3.537 #20 of #86
Clinical Endocrinology 3.412
British Journal of Pharmacology 3.41
International Journal of Parasitology 3.346
Archives of Ophthalmology 3.3
Journal of Vascular Surgery 3.173
Transfusion 3.16
Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry 3.122
Toxicological Sciences 3.088
Archives of Surgery 3.053
Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 3.047
Nephrology Dialysis and Transplantation 2.976
European Journal of Endocrinology 2.962
Pediatric Research 2.875
Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation 2.843
Clinical and Experimental Immunology 2.805
Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine 2.783
Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 2.783
Annals of Emergency Medicine 2.782
Seminars in Dialysis 2.724
Sexually Transmitted Infections 2.688
Respiratory Research 2.68
Clinical Microbiology and Infection 2.679
Spine 2.676
Heart Rhythm Journal 2.67
Journal of Endovascular Therapy 2.636
Neurosurgery 2.587
Neurotrauma 2.574
Journal of Neurotrauma 2.574
Surgery 2.566 12 of 141
Anaesthesia 2.512
British Journal of Ophthalmology 2.459
American Journal of Nephrology 2.459
Headache 2.455
Anesthesia and Analgesia 2.452
British Journal of Anesthesia 2.425
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology 2.413
Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (US) 2.339
American Journal of Infection Control 2.333
Journal of Medical Microbiology 2.318
Journal of Neurosurgery 2.286
Toxicon 2.255
BJU International 2.247
European Journal of Neurology 2.244
Journal of Vascular Interventional Radiology 2.212
Journal of Clinical Pathology 2.17
Journal of Applied Microbiology 2.127
American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygeine 2.063
High Altitude Medicine and Biology 2.03
Scandinavian Journal of Immunology 2.023
Tropical Medicine and International Health 2.021
European Journal of Haematology 2.004
American Journal of Emergency Medicine 1.994
Acta Neurologica Scandinavica 1.982
Artificial Organs 1.946
Occupational and Environmental Medicine 1.934
Vox Sanguinis 1.888
Clinical Transplantation 1.887
Archives of Virology 1.876 #18 of #23
British Journal of Sports Medicine 1.855
Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 1.837
Transplant International 1.797
Academic Emergency Medicine 1.789
Archives of Diseases in Childhood 1.787
ADC Fetal and Neonatal 1.787
Endocrine 1.772
Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 1.767
Liver International 1.766
Journal of Trauma 1.722
Epidemiology and Infection 1.674
Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolysis 1.657
Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology 1.613
Archives of Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery 1.6
Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (UK) 1.565
Journal of Neuroimaging 1.558
Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography 1.513
International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 1.456
Journal of Pediatric Surgery 1.449
Parasite Immunology 1.445
Journal of Critical Care 1.429
Pediatric Transplantation 1.424
Pediatric Anesthesia 1.412
Transfusion Medicine 1.398
European Journal of Epidemiology 1.361
Journal of Travel Medicine 1.329
Journal of Medical Ethics 1.312
Annals of Hematology 1.292
Clinical Medicine 1.281
Respirology 1.264
Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery 1.218
Burns 1.199
Canadian Journal of Microbiology 1.15
Occupational Medicine 1.127
ASAIO Journal 1.124
European Journal of Public Health 1.118
Journal of Burn Care and Rehabilitation 1.042
Journal of Forensic Sciences 1.026
Nephrology 1.023
Postgraduate Medical Journal 0.944
Injury 0.919
Annals of Vascular Surgery 0.914
Journal of Orthopedic Trauma 0.902
Echocardiography 0.877
Clinical and Laboratory Haematology 0.846
Emergency Medicine Journal 0.801
Journal of Cardiac Surgery 0.798
Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology 0.79
Mycoses 0.765
Journal of Hand Surgery 0.729
American Journal of Perinatology 0.685
Archives of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery 0.678 #28 of 41
Texas Heart Institute Journal 0.667
Pediatrics International 0.666
Pediatric Emergency Care 0.644
International Journal of Artificial Organs 0.638
International Journal of Urology 0.629
American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 0.611
Canadian Journal of Surgery 0.591
Neurocritical Care 0.527
Medical History 0.413
Perfusion 0.324
Journal of Pharmacological Sciences 0.234

 

[qwopty99]

There are also rankings for journals within a given field..... below is a compiled list of IFs for medical journals, some of which have ranks listed within their given fields.

New England Journal of Medicine 44.016
Journal of Experimental Medicine 15.302
Journal of Clinical Investigation 15.053
Annals of Internal Medicine 13.254
Circulation 11.632

i think that list is missing 2 and 3:

JAMA
Lancet

 

[qwopty99]

There's less than 50 journals with impact factors greater than 10, and less than 150 greater than 5. I would rank it more generously, something like:

Over 20 (Nature, Science) Frikken' Unbelievable!!
10-20 (Neuron, Lancet) Awesome! Outstanding!
5-10 (JBC, AIM) Party! Excellent!
2-5 (Anesthesiology, Neurology) Great Result!
0-2 OK. Will do. Let's get a >5 next time!!

And as mentioned previously, most of the top journals in medical specialties top out at around 5, but having a publication in those would be awesome for your match potential in that field.

 

[qwopty99]

it must be said there are a lot of specialty journals in specific fields that aren't even indexed on Medline or SCI, that have specific prestige and contributions to certain very narrow fields.

publishing in these are "prestigious" as well. often - they are virtually the only journal in the world on those particular topics, so they don't get high IF in that sense.

 

[Faebinder]

What is the best way to decide how "good" a journal is? Is it based on impact factor?

Would anything over 20 be "Great"
Anything 10-20 be "Good"
Anything 5-10 be "Average"
Anything 0-5 be "Mediocre"

What do you all think?

No you really gotta break it one more level like this..

>20 WOW
10-20 Awesome
5-10 Great
2-5 Good
<2 Well at least you tried.

14 of spades is correct. Some journals are low impact factor but prestigous for the society... e.g. Journal of Pediatric Surgery, low impact factor but it says a lot that you can publish in it as a surgeon trying to get into pediatric surgery.

 

[gbwillner]

What is the best way to decide how "good" a journal is? Is it based on impact factor?

Would anything over 20 be "Great"
Anything 10-20 be "Good"
Anything 5-10 be "Average"
Anything 0-5 be "Mediocre"

What do you all think?

Hmmm... My 2c...

>20 - you lucky, lucky bastard (or whom did you blow?)
10-20 - I hope that 7 year PhD was worth it!
5-10 - If only I had that mouse KO I could have sent this to Cell!
2-5 - How many more gels will avoid publishing a "least publishable unit"?
0-2 - I really need to graduate and all I have is this one measly case report! (or No, I don't want to continue working on this project!)

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Hmmm... My 2c...

>20 - you lucky, lucky bastard (or whom did you blow?)
10-20 - I hope that 7 year PhD was worth it!
5-10 - If only I had that mouse KO I could have sent this to Cell!
2-5 - How many more gels will avoid publishing a "least publishable unit"?
0-2 - I really need to graduate and all I have is this one measly case report! (or No, I don't want to continue working on this project!)

Not ranked- "I'm trying to pad my application and don't want to actually do "real" research"

 

[qwopty99]

Not ranked- "I'm trying to pad my application and don't want to actually do "real" research"

not ranked falls into two categories:

(1) medline vs. (2) non-medline


non-medline further falls into two categories:

(2a) peer-reviewed vs. (2b) non-peer reviewed.


anyone care to comment on the relative merits of publishing in these sub-categories?

 

[Gavanshir]

Don't forget "Physiological Reviews" (28.721)

 

[linana]

There are also rankings for journals within a given field..... below is a compiled list of IFs for medical journals, some of which have ranks listed within their given fields.

New England Journal of Medicine 44.016

The IF of New England Journal of Medicine become 51.296.

 

[gro2001]

What about Academic Medicine? Didnt see it in the list...

 

[qwopty99]

are the (new) 2006 IFs accessible free online?

 

[Neuronix]

In my field the impact factors are really screwy IMO. Going from memory, only one, Radiology, has an impact factor above 5, but it's usually clinical/translational studies.

The one our lab likes to publish in and generally has the most respect for has an impact factor around 2. Recently, another journal in our field started publishing alot of review articles to increase their impact factor (I know one of the editors...), and it worked, so now their impact factor is higher than the one we all hold as being the better journal.

Meanwhile, the #2 journal in our field is human brain mapping, an fMRI journal. Our work is usually unrelated to fMRI, so I was surprised to see that its impact was almost double that of the journal we hold more prestigous.

This all leads me to completely ignore the discussions about impact factor. Once and awhile something will come out of basic science Radiology research and be published in PNAS or Nature Med or such, but it's relatively rare. I often don't see what's so special about those articles that they're any better than the usual articles published in the usual Radiology journals. Such is the game I guess.

 

[qwopty99]

Calculating the impact factor...


Let me get this straight. Articles published THIS YEAR that cite articles from 2006 and 2007 are the only articles that contribute to a journal's IF for THIS YEAR?

Seems ultra narrow. Cause a quick perusal of some recent articles - the vast majority of the citations are NOT from 2006/07, and therefore DO NOT contribute to IF.

This is correct, right?

 

[EBI831]

i think this IF stuff is utter crap. So for me to publish in an ENT journal, the best i can do is a 1.6 and the worse i can do is a 1.2. seeing as there are about only 2 ENT journals on here. i guess i could reach for the oncology ones but still....i'm sure a residency wouldn't think i was worthless with such limited options. well, i guess there's alway Nature. perhaps, one of these days i'll be sitting in my bathtub and eureka i'll discover something like people in the past did...always by accident. the problem tho is that we take showers now and we dont sit under apple trees...they've been cut down to build amusement parks.