A study by researchers at the University of Quebec at Montreal has affirmed that the principle of the rich get richer applies in the world of academic publishing, finding that papers published in high-impact journals collect about twice as many citations as do virtually identical articles published in journals with lower impact ratings.
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6 Responses to Publication in High-Impact Journals Is Found to Reinforce Advantage
gregorynpkonzsj - August 26, 2009 at 3:56 pm
This is not a surprise. It’s also fun to trace the bloodlines of people who publish in the “high impact” journals by checking whom they cite. GKsj
rpmcglynn - August 26, 2009 at 4:24 pm
That’s the definition of high impact journals.
alesgold - August 26, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Generally, people most often cite only what they read. People tend to read mostly high-impact journals. Why is this surprising to anyone?
11214079 - August 26, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Of course — that is what makes them high impact journals.
commentarius - August 27, 2009 at 1:41 pm
File this under “Obvious”.
mbelvadi - August 28, 2009 at 9:34 am
I think what’s non-obvious is that “high impact” is a rating for the journal overall, whereas the study looked at individual articles. Whereas everyone tends to assume that the causal relationship runs in one direction – individual articles that get high rates of citation cause the journal they’re in to have a high impact factor – this study suggests that causality runs back in the other direction – that getting what might be a mediocre article published in a high impact journal causes that individual article to get cited more. This has important and unfortunate implications for those, especially in the open access movement, trying to break through the perceptions of the manuscript-writing faculty that they need to get into the traditional (and expensive) high impact journals to have their work noticed.