Not it is always true

Dear D.K. Agrawala ,

Thank you for posing this interesting question. I think there are three different issues here: journal impact, article impact and article quality. High impact journals tend to have better peer review mechanisms and editorial standards. They also tend to attract researchers with better reputations. This means that they do their best to filter out low quality articles.

However, every discipline will have its own means of establishing and assessing the quality of new contributions. So it is possible for a discipline to develop practices which lead to lower quality findings which are perpetuated by weak peer review. An example is the way applied statistics is evaluated in some other disciplines. You would never expect a non-brain surgeon to carry out an operation on a human brain but, for some reason, some discipline areas seems to feel comfortable in using peer reviewers to evaluate applied statistics aspects of research without a proper grounding in the subject.

The other side is good quality articles are sometimes published in low impact journals. There is nothing wrong with this.

Finally, it is important to recognise the distinction between journal impact and individual article impact. An example is the journal Nature which has high impact but the impact value of individual articles it contains varies greatly.

See also the following discussions about the relation between high impact factors (and other indicators) and the quality of papers:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/The_quality_of_a_research_paper_is_indicated_by_the_journal_it_has_published_from_or_not_How_do_you_judge_the_quality_of_the_research_paper

ttps://www.researchgate.net/post/Scopus_or_ISI_do_you_agree_the_indexed_journal_always_better_than_other_or_non-indexed

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Publishing_only_in_the_journals_with_high_impact_factors_or_publishing_good_papers_no_matter_IF_or_no_IF_journal_and_achieving_high_citation_score2

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Your_opinion_about_the_following_link

not always,some times it publishes poor quality papers too.

Hi...

I think not always.. But sometimes they also publish a research which might seem normal and mediate quality...

I believe it is true :)

It is nothing like that.

Theoretically speaking, yes..But in reality, it is not true. To me, a paper in TAXON is equal in its 'Impact' in comparison to a paper in some relatively ' higher impact' journal, e.g. ECOLOGY LETTERS.

Further, with 'disguised' Article Processing Charges in the name of Open Access, for e.g. MDPI journals has polluted the scientific publishing!

Well, i would say no.

Reviewer expertise, subject knowledge and time play pivotal role.

There are millions of high quality research articles published in low impact or no impact factor journals.

The same case happened with me also, I compiled one manuscript and submitted it to Oriental Insects (Taylor and Francis) which after reviewing got rejected. But I find many papers with less quality and quantity in the above journal than the manuscript which they rejected.

Later, I published that in Polish Journal of Entomology.

I don't understand the policy of these Publishers. They are publishing high quality papers but at the same time rejecting good papers as well.

Hi,

Mostly yes, as these journals have criteria and a good peer review to select good articles.

IF is not a good metric to evaluate journal quality. Some editors are asking the authors to cite papers published in their journal in the last 5 years, to boost their journal's impact factor. This happened to me twice, from two different journals, with impact factors of 5 and 7, and well-known, respected journals, too. Also, a lot of reviewers are asking the authors to cite their papers, and this happened to me many times, at least a dozen times to be exact. In light of such practices, IF is nothing but a number. Also, when I look at some journals with very high impact factors, I see a lot of low quality articles published there as well, further indication that IF is meaningless.

It depends upon the review report and editors response

No, it is not correct to say "always", journals with high impact factor often publish high quality papers but, lower journal have also some good paper as well.

Legrand Cirimwami, PhD.

It depends on the authors, the editors, and the review process. Impact factors are automatically generated based on simplistic and controversial criteria such as citation index, and visibility of the journal articles. The high impact factor of the journal CANNOT, therefore, predict the quality of the pieces embedded in the different volumes of the journal. I participate as a reviewer for different well-ranked journals and the final decisions are sometimes at odds with the review reports; that is some times reviewers suggest that the paper should be rejected (based on well-founded reasons) but later you find out that the paper was published with no outstanding justification from the editors.

However, it is very obvious that well-ranked journals often attract reputable scholars for publishing their works and may have increased prospects of getting outstanding submissions. Despite this, I recommend that people always consider their personal reputation by submitting outstanding pieces for peer reviews rather than focusing on the metrics of the journals. I also recommend that people avoid to the best they can predatory journals. The easiest way you can do this is to double-check the collections and databases of the journal you are targeting. PubMed, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, SAGE Publications are just a few of the many recommendable databases or publishers you can consider.

sometimes, i found very low quality in elite journals. its depend on editor and reviewers choice.

These journals usually value their reputation. As a rule, there are no bad articles in them. I mean journals with 1 Q, in others it is possible.

Regards, Sergey

This is only true statistically and not absolutely. In reality, you have to count with a minimum of 20% error if not more (without exceeding 50%).

Quality certainly matters for an article to be published in a journal with good IF.

But the big question is what is this 'quality' and who is going to judge/quantify it!

There are hardly any well defined indicators to perfectly evaluate quality of the article, except a few. Moreover, with due regards to the reviewer(s), it can be said that opinion may differ with them for the same article. Sometimes, personal feelings,mood,biasness too add complications.

Nevertheless, research design, excellence, interpretation, scientific message and novelty is always rewarding so far as the quality and thereby the IF is/are concerned.

Absolutely No. I agree with you dear Dr D.K. Agrawala according to what you wrote in the introduction of your question .

Agree with M. Kamraju

Your first concern must be to produce good work.

The magazine is secondary.