The Quick Facts on Journal Impact Factor
Definition, Significance, and Impact Factor Values for Specific Journals
So, you appropriately designed a study, diligently conducted the research, painstakingly wrote your manuscript, and now, you are submitting your manuscript for publication. Then, you hesitate and ask yourself, What journal should I submit my manuscript to? How do you decide which journal is the most appropriate?
Arguably, all researchers want their work to be published in “top” journals to assure their publication will reach as many esteemed researchers and practitioners as possible. But, how does one know which journals are the “top” journals?
One way journals are ranked is by their impact factor. Journal impact factor is a measure of the number of times articles in a specific journal are cited over a specified period of time (“Scholarly impact and citation analysis,” 2018; “Measuring your impact,” 2020).
Journal impact factor is a measure of the number of times articles in a specific journal are cited over a specified period of time.
The journal whose articles have been cited the most times is ranked highest, while the journal whose articles have never been cited — if such a thing exists — is ranked lowest. Because the calculation of journal impact factor is typically based on citations in the previous two years, the results reflect not only the frequency of citations but also the frequency of recent citations.
Okay, understood. But, what is the significance of this calculation? How does it matter to me, as a researcher? Higher journal impact factor indicates more citations and, ideally, more importance of the journal. These journals are likely read frequently because they have demonstrated they have articles worth mentioning (i.e., citing) and because researchers and clinicians may be used to seeing that journal cited and view it as a good resource.
Journal impact factor is typically a tool used by libraries to select the journals to which they will subscribe (“Scholarly impact and citation analysis,” 2018). However, understanding which journals are cited more frequently may also help you, as a researcher, choose a journal that will increase the likelihood your article will be read and cited.
Getting your manuscript published in a high-impact journal does not guarantee your article will be read or cited. There is some criticism on the reliability of journal impact factor as a measurement of journal importance (Greenwood, 2007).
Therefore, you should still consider other factors, such as peer review, in determining the quality of a journal.
Think of journal impact factor as simply one tool to determine if the journal in which you want to publish your manuscript is valuable to the research community.
So, you understand what journal impact factor is and its implications. How can you actually find the journal impact factor for different journals? Two accessible and user-friendly tools are SCImago Journal Rank and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (“Measuring your impact,” 2020). You can also use Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate Analytics if you have access.
SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) allows you to search journal impact factor by field, subfield, region or country, type of print material (e.g., journals, book series, conferences and proceedings), and year. An example search is shown below. To conduct your own search, visit the SJR website.
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) differs in that it accounts for fields in which articles may be cited less frequently and, thus, provides a better comparison among journals in different fields. This feature could be useful if you are aiming to publish a manuscript with content that could be categorized in more than one field. You can read more about the methodology SNIP uses to calculate journal impact factor on the CWTS Journal Indicators website.
An example SNIP search on the CWTS Journal Indicators website using the same criteria as that in the search conducted with SJR is shown below. are the results of the same search as that conducted with SJR. As you can see, the results are rather similar. To conduct your own search, visit the CWTS Journal Indicators website.
As a note, you can also search the title of a journal directly in SJR or CWTS Journal Indicators.
Now that you know how to find the journal impact factor, you may be looking at the numbers and wonder what to make of them. A high journal impact factor is good, sure, but what is high? The answer to this question varies, but to give you an idea, the top 10% of journals had an impact factor between 4 and 5 in 2017, meaning that an article published in one of these journals will be cited an average 4–5 times (Gann, 2019).
Keep in mind that what constitutes a low journal impact factor in one field may constitute a high journal impact factor in another field. For example, clinical journals usually have a lower impact factor than other types of journals (“Scholarly impact and citation analysis,” 2018).
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References
Gann, L. (2019, Sep 25). Q. What is considered a good impact factor? The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Research Medical Library. https://mdanderson.libanswers.com/friendly.php?slug=faq/26159
Greenwood, D.C. (2007). Reliability of journal impact factor rankings. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 7(48), 1–6. doi:10.1186/1471–2288–7–48
Measuring your impact: impact factor, citation analysis, and other metrics: journal impact factor (IF). (2020, Feb 8). University of Illinois at Chicago University Library. Retrieved June 22, 2020 from https://researchguides.uic.edu/if
Scholarly impact and citation analysis. (2018, Mar 1). Ohio State University Regional Campus Libraries. Retrieved June 22, 2020 from https://osu.libguides.com/oardc/citation_analysis
