There is not one simple answer. One factor is that high impact journals tend to have higher standards for accepting manuscripts so you can expect higher scientific value and a better prepared manuscript. Additionally authors desire to publish in high ranking journals so they will not send their best manuscripts to low ranking journals.

It is straight forward. The Impact factor of journal ultimately shows the quality and novelty of papers got published. It is not like that researchers don't prefer to read articles of non-impact. Even they read but the quality, reliability and reproducibility and reputation of journal (peer-review) also matters. In most of the cases the quality, reproducibility of works in non-impact journals susceptible.

For Example: you compare the work from these two articles talking about same thing.

1) Cd2+, Mn2+, Ni2+ and Se2+ toxicity to Saccharomyces cerevisiae lacking YPK9p the orthologue of human ATP13A2 (IF-2.5)

2) Alpha-synuclein is part of a diverse and highly conserved interaction network that includes PARK9 and manganese toxicity. (IF-35.5).

These both the articles got published at same time in two journals of huge Impact factor difference. I can say the low impact journal work as a copy of high impact journal work. Bcz both of them are talking about same idea.

However, The nature paper discussed all the possible work about that with all possible explanations with more set of data.

What I mean to say, In my opinion the impact factor of journal tells about the quality and novelty of works got published. So, we can't look IF and citations of the article as separate entities (IF calculation consider number of citations).

Due to these reasons, most of researchers used to follow high impact journals to produce high impact works in high impact journals.

if the quality of work is less, ultimately the impact factor of journal will go down.

This is what I felt about the question and I hope this is all about my general opinion.

Impact factor of a journal represents that quality and the popularity of that particular journal. it depands upon the certain calculations which includes the jow many peoples gone through the journal, how many research articles submitted to the journal, how many of them accepted and rejected and many more.

secondly about the citations, it is the amount that a research paper is used as reference in differnt peer reviewed journals.

Dear Upendra,

Thanks for providing your opinion. I am also in the opinion that sometimes, non peer reviewed & non-impact journals have work with zero reproducibility standards. But I have this opinion for those peer reviewed and impact factor journals. Its all about individual authors and its ethics, which make the work novel and valuable.

Let say about an indian journal, Current Science Founded by well renowned scientist CV Raman. It is an ISI journal now, but not having impact factor(as not displayed on journal's website). Dr. Murali Sastry, in 2003, when Current Science was not even an ISI Journal, published an article "Biosynthesis of metal nanoparticles using fungi and actinomycete", which in span of ten years received 260 Citations. Dr. M Shastry has another paper"Extracellular biosynthesis of monodisperse gold nanoparticles by a novel extremophilic actinomycete, Thermomonospora sp." in Current Science, which he published in same year 2003, received 255 citations and there are many more like these. Dr. M Shastry, in 2012 received India Citation Awards 2012 by Thomson Reuters. Do we can make a believe that the work which Dr. M Shastry had published in Current Science was not of good quality, and that work could not be published in good impact factor journals. No, it can be. But Dr. M Shastry has strong faith in his and his coworker's research, and published those in an Indian Journal, with no impact factor.

Another Example is of Dr. Sandip P Trivedi, who published an article "De Sitter vacua in string theory" in Physical Review D of American Physical Society, in year 2003, when that journal was not having good impact factor. As this journal is having impact factor 4.558 in 2011. But he trusted in the quality of his work and that single article received 2074 Citations, irrespective of the impact factor of journal.

And sir, there are many examples like this. So this coin has both sides, so different perspectives.

And even sir, just look at the references of articles published in Nature Publishing Group, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis. You will get your answer.

One more things, I wish to mention here that all the journals(impact factor one), just look at the quality of articles which they published 15 years back, when they don't have impact factor at all.

By asking this weird question, intention is not to hurt anyone(author/publisher). So kindly treat it as discussion only.

Regards,

Rajeev K Singla

SERB-Young Scientist

http://rajeevksingla.in

[email protected]

Dear all

I would like to deviate your attention to one of the similar questions which throws light on the importance of impact factor. Here also many experts provided their views and I found them to be very interesting too.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_important_is_the_impact_factor_of_a_journal1

Personally I believe when the time comes for judging the scientific potential of a work, the first question which comes to the evaluator's mind is "what is the impact of this paper?".

Citations are good and if cited well, then only, IF will arrive for a journal. So In my opinion, both IF and citations are related to each other.

I have a paper in a journal which does not have an impact but it is the most downloaded article of that journal. There has been a long discussion on this topic previously and finally I arrived on a conclusion that instead of IF, a new measure should be devised to judge the scientific potential of a candidate, for instance, DF i.e. Download Frequency. You will find the details from the link above and I am sure you would have a new perspective after that.

Thanks and regards

I certainly agree with Alok that IF and citations complement and are directly proportional to each other. More the citations, higher the IF of a journal. But as Rajeev is mentioning about individuals perspective, I think IF should not be the only criteria to judge ones caliber. In that case quality of the work, citations and download frequency as rightfully said by Alok needs to be considered apart from IF or the institute an applicant is coming from.

I would also like to add that I do not agree with Rajeev in writing that people do not prefer to read articles in non-impact journals. We certainly read all the related papers about our work from every possible journal immaterial of its IF. But when it comes to site the articles in our own paper, we prefer to cite the most relevant or the work published in high IF journals. This way low IF journals always remain that way and high IF journals keep increasing their IF.

I do agree with Dr. Alok and Ashraf. we can understand the importance of Impact factor and no of citations as like you synthesized a molecules that is very effective or you can say 100% effective for a particular disease but it is so costly that no one can buy like wise You published a paper in a very high Impact factor but if nobody is citing it means this is of no use. So in my opinion Impact factor tells you the quality of paper and no of citations tells you the applicability of your research.

For young researchers IF is important to display the quality of their work. However, the established researchers and scientists would emphasize on the number of citations received. I personally feel 'citations' is a better indicator of quality research. In long terms citations is an evidence for the impact and quality of your work.

I do agree that citation of article is more important which depends on quality and novelty of publication. But on the other hand the work should be peer reviewed. For citation, article should be easily available to researcher.

Usually, journals with high am IF will send the manuscript to reviewers who are really expert in the corresponding field who can evaluate the reliability and importance of the research. On the other hand, low IF journals sometimes (no all) do general review which include the presentation of the results and discussion along with language errors.

Therefore, to publish a research in a journal with high an IF mean that this research has been reviewed and accepted by experts which makes it trusted by other researchers who want to use these results to establish a new research proposal or to discus relevant results.

Number of citation that an article receives obviously relflect its significance in terms of the novelity of the works or its broad applicability in the specific research field. The download frequency similarly indicates the interest the paper has generated among the scientific community. And the number of citation may be proportional to the download frequency. But it does not imply that journal IF is not important. The first impression about a publication comes from where it has been published and what is the impact factor of the journal. And obviously so because citations do not come instantly and take some time before they can be taken into account for evaluation of the work. Thus all of these factors work in unison and can not be viewed independant to each other.

Further, the question Rajeev put forward is why do we not prefer to read articles from non-IF journals. Its not always true as most of us will read articles relevant to our work irrespective of the source - IF or non-IF journals. Only after reading an article, its value in terms of our work can be ascertained.

Dr. Lee F. Rogers, M.D., Editor in Chief, American Journal of Roentgenology(AJR) have published an editorial note in 2002 with a theme "Impact Factor: The Numbers Game". I am giving the direct link to his article.

http://www.ajronline.org/content/178/3/541.full

As per the statement given in Researchgate "For more than 80 years the AJR has been recognized as one of the best specialty journals in the world."

I hope, his article will somehow support my question.

Why I asked this question, is actually related to my concern for those well reputed national and international journals, which are extremely good, and successfully published peer reviewed articles since decades. But if we see the impact factor of those journals, Then it is much lesser than recently launched journals. Whats the possible explanation for this. I think, Lee F Rogers's article explain the scenario well.

Thanks a lot for providing fruitful answers. These answers will help the young researchers like me.

Regards,

Rajeev K Singla

SERB-Young Scientist

http://rajeevksingla.in

[email protected]

mostly you will observe that journals of indo-asian origin have very low impact factors may be to establish their own monopoly of some publishers , most best journals of indian and asian origin indexed in pubmed have as low as impact factor 0.7, second best thing you can consider is Sci mago impact of the journal where most of indo-asian journals are rannked and not ranked by the paid organisations ....you know what i mean

well as per of my knowledge, impact factor of any journal is based on some topics most importantly on the number of citations from that particular journal. i hope u get my point .

Dear Mohammad, Thanks for the reply. Mohammad, Plz read the description of the question asked. I already mentioned that, But unfortunately Impact factor is calculated on the basis of citations received for the articles published in two years in that particular journal. It is not 100% related or I can say evaluatory parameter for individual article of the scientist. Impact factor is just like premier school/college/university like Oxford, Harward, MIT, IIT, IIMs. But my question is for individual article, just like recruiter assess the testimonials of individual students(candidate), irrespective of the fact that all belongs to the IIT or IIM.

Regards,

Most of reputed journal with good impact factor require 6 to 8 month for acceptance of article and published 3 to 6 month later. it means our article reach to researcher after 1 year later. So citation of article will takes place 1 year later.

Dear Rajeev , sorry i did't check the whole thread before adding my opinion here. Your question was quite interesting and just coz of some page setting i did't even saw the whole story and replied it quite quickly. And after your reply, i go through it and feel embarrassing. well absolutely your point is 100% genuine.

Regards

Aatif

Dear Md Aatif,

Kindly don't apologise. It is merely a discussion, and discussion always need to have critics in both angles. Let see, wht majority speaks abt it.

Take care

Regards,

Rajeev K Singla

SERB-Young Scientist

http://rajeevksingla.in

I think we should not judge one's potential just by comparing his/her 's Research Impact factor and no of citations.There are so many factors which control ones ability to do good work like if you think about the facilities available for the Indian young Researchers. They do have the potential to publish in Nature/Science or JACS but because of some limitations they cannot think beyond the boundaries.

Dear Ajeet Sir,

Yes sir, you are absolutely right. But sir, we Indians need not to prove ourselves by publishing papers in Nature/Science or JACS. Intellect of India is known worldwide. There are n number of examples. We had great great Shri CV Raman, Aryabhat Ji, Scientists in NASA etc. So we do have capabilities to work in the minimum resources. And sir, as you mentioned that we can't think beyond boundaries, it is only because of the lacking proper orientation and junior-senior relationship. We are actually diverting from the discussion.

My question was actually if someone is saying that he/she had done good research/or any recruiter(industry/academics/research center) when observe the CV of a person, then what the recruiter should observe, if research is what he/she is looking for.

Dear Dr. Rajeev,

I think you misunderstood me. I am saying the same thing. We have the capabilities to do good work but because of some limitations (like facilities, proper guidance, opportunities etc.) we are lack somewhere. If you will talk about the great great people like Shri CV Raman, Ramanajuam etc. they only could show their potential when the got the opportunities(abroad). When they were in India we never realized their potential. So we should not judge ones potential just seeing their papers only (Impact factors and no of citations ). I know so many my colleagues, professors, researchers they are real genius, but still they are struggling, May be they dnt have any good publications like in nature and Science but they are good Scientist, they have the potential.I know i diverted from the main point but i wanted to seek the attention of the Big people, who are associated with this social site that please dont' judge the researchers only by the No of papers he has. I really aplogise if i said something wrong.

Ajeet

Dear Ajeet Sir,

I offer my sincere apologies for this misunderstanding. And sir, kindly address me as Rajeev K Singla only, as I am not doctorate, and not even registered for the same. so plz don't add Dr.

I am agree with your opinion sir, that many people don't get good opportunities, instead of having genius mind. But there are many examples of Indians sir, who have limitations like ego(attitude), local reservations etc. Who just don't realize the opportunities they received.

But sir, I am not agree with the opinion that scientists should not be judged by number of publications, citation number, H-index, patents. Since, I personally believe that its not only important to do research(major/minor, with any kind of resources), but it is more important to disseminate the same to the global audience either in form of publications or patents, or if possible via open source drug discovery program. So that people will be updated with the recent activities in that particular research area, and also it should be the tendency of any scientist to apply the research for mankind, not just keeping that in his/her report as alchemist.

Another important thing is one should know the application of his/her research, and in how much time it should be open for global audience, for some diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, trypanosomiasis, amoebiasis, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, AIDS, swine flu and many more like this. It doesn't matter where it's being published, just to make sure that it reaches to wide number of audience, the aim to serve mankind should be fulfilled.

Another major lacunae which we Indians have is the paper drafting and disbelief in our own national journals.

Kindly share your thoughts!

Take care

Regards

Rajeev K Singla