In response to :
Joseph K.S. "Quality of impact factors of general medical journals"
British Medical Journal  326:283  February 1, 2003
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/326/7383/283

K S Joseph, associate professor.
Perinatal Epidemiology Research Unit, Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and of Pediatrics, Dalhousie University,
5980 University Avenue, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4N1 kjoseph@is.dal.ca


              British Medical Journal, February 19 2003

Quality of impact factors of general  medical journals -
PRAVDA wins hands down

Eugene Garfield,  Founding Editor  The Scientist
e-mail: garfield@codex.cis.upenn.edu
http://eugenegarfield.org
_________________________________

 
                If circulation were the determining factor in journal impact then
                JAMA should have the highest impact factor and journals like NEJM
                with lower circulation would not. Impact is primarily a measure of
                the use (value?) by the research community of the article in
                question.If an author or journal is cited significantly above the
                average then we say the author's work has been influential albeit
                sometimes controversial.

                It is true that quality like beauty is often in the eyes of the
                beholder, but if peer judgments are taken as a potential source of
                quality judgment then citation frequency is well correlated with e.g.
                Nobel and other awards. It is extremely rate for a Nobel class
                scientist not to have published one or more citation classics.
                Indeed in 1967 we determed that Nobel scientists publish five to six
                times as often as the average author and their work is citd 30 to
                fifty times as often. There is extensive documentation at
                www.eugenegarfield.org
 

Read other  Rapid Responses at : http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/326/7383/283

Quality matters --and the choice of indicator, too
     Miquel Porta
     bmj.com, 6 Feb 2003 [Full text]
Quality of impact factors of general medical journals - PRAVDA wins hands down
     Tom Jefferson, et al.
     bmj.com, 7 Feb 2003 [Full text]
Re: Quality of impact factors of general medical journals - PRAVDA wins hands down
     Eugene Garfield
     bmj.com, 18 Feb 2003 [Full text]
The assessment of research quality using a combination of approaches
     Joseph L.Y. Liu
     bmj.com, 19 Feb 2003 [Full text]

Related letters in BMJ:

Quality of impact factors of general medical journals
     Miquel Porta and Joseph L Y Liu
     BMJ 2003 326: 931. [Letter]
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/326/7395/931