Editorial

pubs.acs.org/JPCL

Journal Impact Factor and the Real Impact of Your Paper

papers, measures the worldwide size of the scientic enterprise

in that discipline. So, one needs to consider the individual
discipline and the topics covered in each journal when
comparing the JIF between two or more journals. It may be
interesting to note that the majority of journals that carry very
high impact factors (>25) publish just a few selected papers
(100200) each year, thus making the paper selection
subjective for the editorial screening process.
In addition to the two-year JIF, JCR also publishes JIFs based
on a ve-year analysis. The ve-year JIF is a better metric
because it provides a papers long-term impact. JCR also
calculates JIFs that exclude self-citations. Typically, a journal
with a lower fraction of self-citations (315%) reects a
broader outreach of the journal. However, for some journals
this fraction remains large (>25%), thus pointing out a closely
knit author network within the discipline. Any large fraction of
self-citations raises a ag and leads to further investigation to
determine whether the number of citations are being articially
inated. (Note: 39 Journal titles were suppressed in 2015 by
JCR because of excessive self-citations. See http://ipsciencehelp.thomsonreuters.com/incitesLive/JCRGroup/
titleSuppressions.html.)
Why One Should Not Equate the Impact Factor of the Journal to
the Impact of the Published Paper. The 2014 journal impact
factor (JIF) list has now been released (Table 1) and journals
and authors make use of this metric to promote their causes.
The JIF is intended to gauge the overall impact of the journal,
and one needs to scrutinize it carefully to evaluate the impact of
a particular paper published in that journal. It is important to
note nearly 60% of the papers published in any given journal
are cited less than the average citation per paper published
during the two-year JIF period. Often, review articles and a few
key research papers bring in a disproportionately high number
of citations to their respective journals (see the impact of the
top 1% of articles in Table 1).

ach year in June, Thomson Reuters releases new journal

impact factors (JIF) for scientic journals, based on the
citation analysis of Journal Citation Reports (JCR). The
original intent of JIF was to assist librarians in making journal
selections. However, the journal impact factor has in recent
years taken a prime spot in the academic and scientic worlds
to judge the merit of individual publications (see 1 in Related
Readings). In many countries, this metric is used to gauge the
quality of published papers and commend the authors with
rewards. Do the decision-making administrators consider the
elements that determine the JIF? Do they evaluate the individual
papers to see whether the JIF reflects the actual impact of
contributed work?
What Elements Determine the Impact Factor? JIF is a citation
metric determined using the JCR database of Thomson
Reuters. The JIF is the ratio of the number of citations in a
given year to the number of papers published during the
previous two years (eq 1)
JIFYear YY =

(citations to research and review articles and editorials)Year YY

(number of research and review articles)Years(YY1&YY2)

(1)

The JIF becomes larger with either increasing the number of

citations (larger numerator) or having fewer published papers
(smaller denominator). Because JIF takes into account papers
published during the previous two years, it reects a short-term
impact. There have been several critical reports pointing out
shortfalls in relating research performance to journal impact
factor (see, for example, Related Readings 14). However, the
JIF seems to be growing in importance among authors. A few
key points that provide insight into the JIF will be discussed
here.
Why a Comparison of Impact Factors between Two Disciplines Is
Diff icult. First of all, the JIF is highly dependent upon the
discipline or eld of research. Journals that exclusively publish
papers related to popular topics (e.g., nanoscience, materials,
and energy conversion and storage) are likely to see a greater
JIF compared to journals in the broader disciplines (e.g.,
physical chemistry, chemical physics, condensed matter physics,
mathematics). Even for popular journals, a few selected topics
bring in more citations than other areas. Increased funding by
government agencies for specic research topics is another
factor that attracts more researchers to a specic eld and, thus,
increases the probability of even more papers being published
in that discipline.

It is important to note nearly 60% of the

papers published in any given journal
are cited less than the average citation
per paper published during the twoyear JIF period.

Popular topics covered through editorial matter (nonpeer

reviewed articles) can also bring an increased number of
citations. Citations received through editorial matter is a bonus
for JIF consideration as it adds to the numerator of the JIF
equation, but not the denominator. Although not a common
occurrence, a few retracted papers actually continue to get
citations even after the work is proved to be wrong or
fraudulent. Hence, one needs to take into account all these

The JIF is highly dependent upon the

discipline or eld of research.
There are also signicant dierences in impact factors
depending on whether the eld of research is or is not
supported in large countries such as China, as citations to
papers in, say, ACS journals that are in local or regional journals
including foreign language journals count in the JIF. In this
respect, the JIF of a given discipline, when summed over all
2015 American Chemical Society

Published: August 6, 2015

3074

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01527
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2015, 6, 30743075

The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

Editorial

Table 1. Comparison of 2014 Citation Metrics of Few Selected Journals that Publish Communication Type Articlesa
2014 Impact Factor (JIF)
journal
J. Phys Chem. Lett.
Phys. Rev. Lett.
Chem. Commun.
Nature Commun.
Chem. Phys. Lett.
Appl. Phys. Lett.
Phys. Chem. Chem.
Phys.b
ChemPhysChemb
J. Chem. Phys.b
Angew. Chem., Int.
Ed.b

20122013
papers

2014
citations

2014 self-cites

2-year

2-year (without
self-cites)

5-year

impact of top 1% papers

(cites/paper)c

1309
7344
6309
2297
1874
10339
4069

9762
55165
43113
26346
3555
34135
18282

576
4491
3348
855
254
4970
1646

(5.90%)
(8.14%)
(7.77%)
(3.25%)
(7.15%)
(14.56%)
(9.00%)

7.458
7.512
6.834
11.470
1.897
3.302
4.493

7.017
6.900
6.302
11.097
1.761
2.820
4.088

7.536
7.360
6.779
11.904
1.963
3.569
4.219

84
75
51
105
14
25
37

943
5263
4564

3224
15537
51395

121 (3.75%)
4139 (26.64%)
3758 (7.31%)

3.419
2.952
11.261

3.290
2.165
10.437

3.243
3.017
12.060

32
23
99

number of papers with no

citations in 2014c
74
385
410
83
563
1981
503

(5.7%)
(5.2%)
(6.5%)
(3.6%)
(30.0%)
(10.7%)
(12.4%)

163 (17.1%)
1131 (21.4%)
138 (3.0%)

Source: 2015 Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science Core Collection (Thomson Reuters, 2015). bOnly a fraction of the published articles
are communication-type articles. cFrom Web of Science Core Collection, Thomson Reuters, 2015. (Document types = Articles, Reviews, Letters.)

factors while evaluating a journals merit as well as the impact of

each particular published work. (For a humorous parody of the
factors inuencing impact factor, see http://www.phdcomics.
com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1108.)

The impact metric of individual authors

or published work is a better approach
to assess the research performance
than relating his/her published work to
journal metrics.

The newly released 2014 impact factor

of J. Phys. Chem. Lett. now stands at
7.458.

The newly released 2014 impact factor of J. Phys. Chem. Lett.

now stands at 7.458. Does this mean all the papers published in
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. from 2012 to 2013 carry a citation of 7 in
2014? The answer is obviously a no. Only about 40% of
published papers carry an average citation equal to or more
than 7.458. It is also interesting to note that 5.7% of JPCL
papers failed to garner a single citation in 2014! Similar
fractions of uncited papers are also found for other journals.
(See Table 1 for the number of 201213 papers with no
citations in 2014.) Clearly, one cannot judge the impact of any
given paper based solely on the JIF of the journal in which it is
published.
The impact formula that is applied to journals can also be
applied to individual authors by determining the number of
citations (excluding self-citations) for papers published during
the previous two years. For example, if an author publishes 20
peer-reviewed papers in two successive years and receives 100
citations (excluding self-citations) for those same papers in the
following year, the impact factor of his/her published work is 5.
Thus, the ratio of the citations to the number of published
papers should give a measure of the impact of the individual
authors published work. Perhaps this measure of impact may
serve as a better metric when evaluating the impact of an
individual authors research contributions. The impact metric of
individual authors or published work is a better approach to
assess the research performance than relating his/her published
work to journal metrics.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Notes

Views expressed in this Editorial are those of the authors and

not necessarily the views of the ACS.

RELATED READINGS

(1) Van Noorden, R. Transparency Promised for Vilified Impact

Factor. Nature 2014, DOI: 10.1038/nature.2014.15642.
(2) Beall, J. The Metric System: Yet More Chaos in Scholarly
Publishing. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2015, 6, 20202021.
(3) Buriak, J. M. The Impact of the Impact Factor. Chem. Mater.
2014, 26, 38713872.
(4) Van Noorden R. Scientists Join Journal Editors to Fight ImpactFactor Abuse. Nature 2013 http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/05/
scientists-join-journal-editors-to-ght-impact-factor-abuse.html.

Prashant V. Kamat, Deputy Editor

University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556,

United States

George C. Schatz, Editor-in-Chief

Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, United

States
3075

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.5b01527
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2015, 6, 30743075