Dear Colleague,

I think it is better to specify a field of knowledge first, then specify the top ten journals.

for example we can not compare a journal in engineering with another one in agriculture...

Anyway, this site is very good.

www.scimagojr.com

Regards,

Emad

Thank you for sharing this question with me.

I think the question should be what is the top 10 journals in each specialist because each scope has its own IF and can not be generalized for all the joyrnals. For example, the medecine journals have higher IF than the others and so on.

Regards

Ali

Thanks a lot dear Ali A. Yousif

I agree with Ali.

First, I strongly oppose to the idea that IF reflects the quality of a journal (or articles published in it). Second, as Ali says, IF highly depends on the subject domain, in which it is utilized as citation behaviour vary from one subject domain to another. Therefore, it is more appropriate to looking for topmost journals (based on IF) separately for distinct subject domains.

Thank dear Alain Mwamba Mukendi

Salih Muhammad Awadh as Ali A. Yousif explained it depends largely on your field of research. The following link e.g. lists a number of IF journals in geology:

https://guides.library.illinois.edu/geology/journals

Dear Frank T Edelmann

Thank you very much for a nice answer

Salih Muhammad Awadh you're welcome. When having a closer look at this, you will find that the impact factors of scientific journals differ significantly between various fields of research. Attached please find an overview of the most important IF journals in our field of research (chemistry).

Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh

Considering the Impact factor from Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of the Web of Science Core Collection, the top ten journals (IF 2019) are:

1. CA-A CANCER JOURNAL FOR CLINICIANS - 292.2

2. NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE - 74.6

3. Nature Reviews Materials - 71.1

4. NATURE REVIEWS DRUG DISCOVERY - 64.7

5. LANCET - 60.3

6. WHO Technical Report Series - 59.0

7. NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY - 55.4

8. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology - 53.2

9. NATURE REVIEWS CANCER - 53.0

10. CHEMICAL REVIEWS - 52.7

Best regards.

Fábio Dominski, yes, that's the best answer to the original question. It's not surprising that medical journals are in first places.

Fábio Dominski Good answer.

Dear Colleague,

I think it is better to specify a field of knowledge first, then specify the top ten journals.

for example we can not compare a journal in engineering with another one in agriculture...

Anyway, this site is very good.

www.scimagojr.com

Regards,

Emad

Every research area has their own category of Top Journals, it depends on your research area.

Salih Muhammad Awadh I agree with Gulzar Mehmood in that the Top 10 journals should better be compared within a certain field of research. Between different research areas the differences in impact factors can be very high.

Dear Frank T. Edelmann

Dear Gulzar Mehmood

Emad Kamil Hussein

Dear all, Thanks a lot for your nice contribution

TOP 10

1

CA-A CANCER JOURNAL FOR CLINICIANS

IF 292.278

2

NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE

IF 74.699

3

Nature Reviews Materials

IF 71.189

4

NATURE REVIEWS DRUG DISCOVERY

IF 64.797

5

LANCET

IF 60.392

6

WHO Technical Report Series

IF 59

7

NATURE REVIEWS MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY

IF 55.47

8

Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology

IF 53.276

9

NATURE REVIEWS CANCER

IF 53.03

10

CHEMICAL REVIEWS

IF 52.758

Muzafer H. Saračević this list had already been posted by Fábio Dominski.

Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh

There are several tools which enable users to look up and automatically calculate the impact indicators of the most important scientific journals:

• Journal Citation Reports (JCR): It includes publications reviewed by the most widely-cited experts in the world and covers approximately 200 different disciplines. JCR can be accessed online via the Web Of Science platform (WOS) and can be used to run online searches and look up the Impact Factor of a given journal or a group of journals and make comparisons between these. The impact factor is calculated annually by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).
  • This is an essential tool for investigating the level of influence and impact that a journal has had on the international research community.
  • It does not measure the quality of an article but rather that of the journal in which the article was published.
  • Not every journal has a JCR impact factor and journals that do have one do not have this permanently.
  • The impact factor of a journal is updated every year and may vary from one year to another.
  • One single journal can be associated with several subject areas and it is likely that the journal will have a different level of impact within each of these subject areas.
  • The impact index of a journal title in any given year is a fixed index in JCR.
  • Each subject category of journals is divided into four quartiles: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Q1 is occupied by the top 25% of journals in the list; Q2 is occupied by journals in the 25 to 50% group; Q3 is occupied by journals in the 50 to 75% group and Q4 is occupied by journals in the 75 to 100% group. The most prestigious journals within a subject area are those which occupy the first quartile, Q1

Best regards.

Dear Enaiat Haghfarshy when you copy-and paste answers from the internet, it is advisable that you cite the source. Otherwise it would be plagiarism. In this case the source is the following link:

https://www.mondragon.edu/en/web/biblioteka/publications-impact-indexes

For more information about plagiarism on RG, please refer to the following thread:

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

Salih Muhammad Awadh

Dear Researcher,

This is a very good question that you have raised. I am being benefited immensely by your question and the answers provided by the great scientists and researchers from around the world.

In this context, there is a question in my mind. I am a researcher with limited abilities. After pursuing a research, how do I understand whether my research has reached the level to get published in one of the best journals or not. I mean to say that, should I approach the journal editors directly for publication and let them decide or is there any other way.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Anamitra.

Journal Impact Factor

The most commonly used measure of journal quality is the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). The Impact Factor attempts to measure the quality of a journal in terms of its influence on the academic community. In general, the higher the Impact Factor, the more important and prestigious the journal within its particular field.

Journal ranking is widely used in academic circles in the evaluation of an academic journal's impact and quality. Journal rankings are intended to reflect the place of a journal within its field, the relative difficulty of being published in that journal, and the prestige associated with it. They have been introduced as official research evaluation tools in several countries.

Dear Faraed Salman when you copy-and-paste your answers from the internet (in this case Wikipedia) you should cite the source. Otherwise it's plagiarism!

This is the Wikipedia entry which you plagiarized:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_ranking

Dear Anamitra Roy "how do I understand whether my research has reached the level to get published in one of the best journals or not." This is of course a vey important question and not an easy decision. To judge this, you need to have a good overview of your field of research. Once you have envisaged a certain journal for submission of your work, it also helps to read the current issue of this journal to get an impression what the published papers are like. In my opinion it is not advisable to contact the Editor prior to submission.

It might also be of interest to you to check out the following RG thread:

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

Frank T. Edelmann

Dear Professor,

Thank you very much for your guidance. I shall surely keep those in mind. I shall also go through the link.

Best regards,

Anamitra.

Top 10 Scientific Journals [and how to check for quality] and some details available at https://imotions.com/blog/top-science-journals/

Top journals based on IF https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342623066_Journal_Citation_Reports_2020_Impact_factor_Ranking_of_2019

It is preferable to mention the field of research for the ranking because journal citation report (JCR) is based on subject area/specialization.

JCR in web of science gives list of ranking of journals according to their impact factor. Authors can view from 1-100 or more ranking of the journals.

Dear Frank T. Edelmann, please also share Journal's list of Environment.

I think Scientific Journal Ranking (SJR) site is the best site of journal ranking www.scimagojr.com

Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh

Top 20 journals as per journal citation report (2019) are given below:

1. CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians: 292.278

2. New England Journal of Medicine: 74.699

3. Nature Reviews Materials: 71.189

4 . Nature Reviews Drug Discovery: 64.797

5. LANCET: 60.392

6. WHO Technical Report Series: 59.000

7. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology: 55.470

8 Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology: 53.276

9 Nature Reviews CANCER: 53.030

10 Chemical Reviews: 52.758

11. Nature Energy: 46.495

12. Journal of American Medical Association: 45.540

13. Reviews of Modern Physics: 45.037

14. Chemical Society Reviews: 42.846

15. Nature: 42.778

16. Science: 41.845

17. Nature Reviews Disease Primers: 40.689

18. World Psychiatry: 40.595

19. World Psychiatry: 40.595

20. Nature Reviews Immunology: 40.358

I think citation is the major factor that accounts for impact factor of journals. However, other factors of journals such as timeliness of publication, review process, visibility, accessibility, and the like also contribute to impact factor of journals. To my opinion, impact factor by and large reflects quality of journals; however, there may be exceptions, and it should not be considered an absolute parameter.

Thanks!

Dear Aijaz Panhwar please see this potentially useful link. It lists the top journals in Environmental Science.

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=2301

Journal Citation Reports ranks journals based on their impact factor within their disciplinary category... 

SJR discipline rankings lists all of the journals in a discipline or subdiscipline based on their SJR. These rankings are available only through SCImago's website, scimagojr.com ...

Google Scholar rankings list all of the journals in a discipline or subdiscipline based on the H5-index or H5-median. These rankings are available through Google Scholar Metrics...

https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/c.php?g=175335&p=1154356

Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh , there is one research question with more than hundred answers which are relevant and related to your research question. Link follows.

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

you see the attached file

Dear Dr. Frank T. Edelmann, thanks for sharing of very useful and informative link of Environment journals.

Many Journal ranking lists and databases are given here.

https://latrobe.libguides.com/wherepublish/ranks

Dear Arbind K. Choudhary "Top 20 journals as per journal citation report (2019) are given below": I hope you don't mind if I mention that this list has already been posted at least two times on this thread. Besides, I seriously doubt if this thread is really helpful of many RG members as most of us will never have the chance to publish in any one of the journals mentioned in this list....

Dear Frank T. Edelmann

As per question, I added the list comprising top 20 journals. The list I posted in modified form under the section "data" in my publication profile more than 3 months ago. Yes, I share your doubt that hardly any of us would be able to utilize these journals to publish our papers.

Thanks a lot for all for the valuable information

This may help: https://journal-if.com/

What is the difference between Cite Score and impact Factor for the rebuttable journals?

Dear Salih Muhammad Awadh , you may find necessary information about the difference between Cite Score and impact Factor in following discussion rooms.

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

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

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