A high impact factor journal is a measure of a journal's 'reputation' among the peer group. It measured as no. of citations in the last 2 yrs per paper published in that jounral. There are universities in US which insist on at least one publication in a highly rated journal (i.e.high impact factor) before they would give a tenure to a prof. I know of at least one US univ which treats 4 paper in a C grade journal = 1 paper in A grade journal in the field of management. This has resulted in top quality research getting published in high I.F. journal which in turn further increases its high citation. Therefore a paper published in high IF journal are good quality paper.This obviously does not mean publication in low I.F. journal are of low quality. It also does not mean papers which are cited more often (and therefore contribute to the IF of a journal) are necessarily high quality papers. The frequency of citations is very much a function of no. of researchers working on a subject, the funding which a subject area is getting and of course, the comprehensibility of a paper. In my case, my most cited paper (cited at least once a month as per google scholar since the last 3 yrs) is in my opinion an average paper (as far as its intellectual depth is concerned. But the paper which is indeed a significant contribution to the world of knowledge (in my opinion), has not been cited even once largely because there are very few researchers working in this field. As a rookie researcher, I will suggest, try publishing in a A grade journal if you are confident about the quality of your research. It will add to your visibility

I'd have to agree with Madhu Kumar, as in that publishing in high IF journals helps improve your CV and desirability for academic positions. However, if you're writing in a field where research is not common, a good researcher in that same field should be able to find your article if he looks deep enough, no matter where you publish. Just make sure you place your article in places like ResearchGate so others can find it.

Ib the context of high and low impact factor journals, I would like to quote my 2009 article ( see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24012689_Rank-normalized_journal_impact_factor_as_a_predictive_tool?ev=prf_pub), that shown a real application of the rank-normalized journal IF as a proxy of real citation frequency . So, total criticism of IF is at least partly exaggerated...

Article Rank-normalized journal impact factor as a predictive tool

High end research hardly reaches common people. Science gets its fruits only if it can benefit society.

Note this contribution to publishing aspects in high versus low impact factor journals, exemplified by ecological periodicals:

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/0012-9623-96.2.312

Hi there,

After discovering the meaning of Impact Factor online, I would say "a yes" and "a no" to your question. Yes, because the paper is esteemed with high value if it is published in a reputable journal with a high impact factor(giving you more exposure to reputable positions in the academic arena).

However, I say No, because the quality of your work still remains whether it is in a "good journal(HIF)“ or a " not so good journal(LIF)".

What matters is that your work has been made public and will be beneficial to anyone who finds and reads it if you did a great job at it.

Advice:

1. Don't focus too much on Impact Factor, focus on how your research can help other researchers across the world.

2. Submit your paper to a journal that at least conducts peer review before publication.

#Quality matters

how will I do to make my journals or articles have high impact factor?