November 18, 2005

The 'Abuse' of Journals' Impact Factors

To the Editor:

Although Richard Monastersky describes a real problem — the abuse of journals' impact factors — its solution is so obvious that we hardly need so many words on the subject ("The Number That's Devouring Science," The Chronicle, October 14).

A journal's impact factor is the average number of citations received by articles in that journal; the Thomson Corporation's ISI — somewhat arbitrarily — calculates impact factors on

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