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Impact factor
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===Questionable editorial policies that affect the impact factor=== {{See also |Conflicts of interest in academic publishing#COIs of journals}} Because impact factor is commonly accepted as a proxy for research quality, some journals adopt editorial policies and practices, some acceptable and some of dubious purpose, to increase its impact factor.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Number That's Devouring Science |newspaper=The Chronicle of Higher Education |vauthors=Monastersky R |date=14 October 2005 |url=http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i08/08a01201.htm}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Nefarious Numbers |vauthors=Arnold DN, Fowler KK |author-link1=Douglas N. Arnold |year=2011 |journal=[[Notices of the American Mathematical Society]] |volume=58 |issue=3 |pages=434–437 |arxiv=1010.0278 |bibcode=2010arXiv1010.0278A}}</ref> For example, journals may publish a larger percentage of [[review article]]s which generally are cited more than research reports.<ref name=garfield>{{cite web |title=The Clarivate Impact Factor |website=Clarivate |date=20 June 1994 |url=https://clarivate.com/essays/impact-factor/}}</ref> Research undertaken in 2020 on dentistry journals concluded that the publication of "systematic reviews have significant effect on the Journal Impact Factor ... while papers publishing clinical trials bear no influence on this factor. Greater yearly average of published papers ... means a higher impact factor."<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Valderrama P, Escabias M, Valderrama MJ, Jiménez-Contreras E, Baca P |title=Influential variables in the Journal Impact Factor of Dentistry journals |journal=Heliyon |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=e03575 |date=March 2020 |pmid=32211547 |pmc=7082530 |doi=10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03575|doi-access=free |bibcode=2020Heliy...603575V }}</ref> Journals may also attempt to limit the number of "citable items"—i.e., the denominator of the impact factor equation—either by declining to publish articles that are unlikely to be cited (such as case reports in medical journals) or by altering articles (e.g., by not allowing an [[abstract (summary)|abstract]] or [[bibliography]] in hopes that Journal Citation Reports will not deem it a "citable item"). As a result of negotiations over whether items are "citable", impact factor variations of more than 300% have been observed.<ref name=PLoS-editorial>{{cite journal|title=The impact factor game. It is time to find a better way to assess the scientific literature |journal=PLOS Medicine |volume=3 |issue=6 |pages=e291 |date=June 2006 |pmid=16749869 |pmc=1475651 |doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030291 |author=((The PLoS Medicine Editors))<!-- Italics in accept-this-as-written markup produce corrupt metadata --> |doi-access=free }}</ref> Items considered to be uncitable—and thus are not incorporated in impact factor calculations—can, if cited, still enter into the numerator part of the equation despite the ease with which such citations could be excluded. This effect is hard to evaluate, for the distinction between editorial comment and short original articles is not always obvious. For example, letters to the editor may be part of either class. Another less insidious tactic journals employ is to publish a large portion of its papers, or at least the papers expected to be highly cited, early in the calendar year. This gives those papers more time to gather citations. Several methods, not necessarily with nefarious intent, exist for a journal to cite articles in the same journal which will increase the journal's impact factor.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Agrawal AA |title=Corruption of journal Impact Factors |journal=Trends in Ecology & Evolution |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=157 |date=April 2005 |pmid=16701362 |doi=10.1016/j.tree.2005.02.002 |bibcode=2005TEcoE..20..157A |url=http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/research/papers/other%20pdfs/agrawal%202005%20tree%20corruption.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100619084714/http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/research/papers/other%20pdfs/agrawal%202005%20tree%20corruption.pdf |archive-date=2010-06-19}}</ref><ref name="pmid12139549">{{cite journal |vauthors=Fassoulaki A, Papilas K, Paraskeva A, Patris K |title=Impact factor bias and proposed adjustments for its determination |journal=Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica |volume=46 |issue=7 |pages=902–5 |date=August 2002 |pmid=12139549 |doi=10.1034/j.1399-6576.2002.460723.x |s2cid=20805963}}</ref> Beyond editorial policies that may skew the impact factor, journals can take overt steps to [[game the system]]. For example, in 2007, the specialist journal ''[[Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica]]'', with an impact factor of 0.66, published an editorial that cited all its articles from 2005 to 2006 in a protest against the "absurd scientific situation in some countries" related to use of the impact factor.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Schutte HK, Svec JG |title=Reaction of Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica on the current trend of impact factor measures |journal=Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica |volume=59 |issue=6 |pages=281–5 |year=2007 |pmid=17965570 |doi=10.1159/000108334 |s2cid=7595296}}</ref> The large number of citations meant that the impact factor for that journal increased to 1.44. As a result of the increase, the journal was not included in the 2008 and 2009 ''Journal Citation Reports''.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com/JCR/static_html/notices/notices.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100515192042/http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com/JCR/static_html/notices/notices.htm |archive-date=2010-05-15 |url-status=dead |title=Journal Citation Reports – Notices |access-date=2009-09-24}}</ref> [[Coercive citation]] is a practice in which an editor forces an author to add extraneous citations to an article before the journal will agree to publish it, in order to inflate the journal's impact factor.<ref>{{Cite journal |vauthors=McLeod S |date=2020-09-25 |title=Should authors cite sources suggested by peer reviewers? Six antidotes for handling potentially coercive reviewer citation suggestions |journal=Learned Publishing |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=282–286 |doi=10.1002/leap.1335 |doi-access=free |s2cid=225004022 |issn=0953-1513}}</ref> A survey published in 2012 indicates that coercive citation has been experienced by one in five researchers working in economics, sociology, psychology, and multiple business disciplines, and it is more common in business and in journals with a lower impact factor.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Wilhite AW, Fong EA |title=Scientific publications. Coercive citation in academic publishing |journal=Science |volume=335 |issue=6068 |pages=542–3 |date=February 2012 |pmid=22301307 |doi=10.1126/science.1212540 |s2cid=30073305 |bibcode=2012Sci...335..542W}}</ref> Editors of leading business journals banded together to disavow the practice.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Lynch JG |title=Business journals combat coercive citation |journal=Science |volume=335 |issue=6073 |pages=1169.1–1169 |date=March 2012 |pmid=22403371 |doi=10.1126/science.335.6073.1169-a |bibcode=2012Sci...335.1169L}}</ref> However, cases of coercive citation have occasionally been reported for other disciplines.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Dyer C |title=Widow can be inseminated with husband's sperm |journal=BMJ |volume=314 |issue=7079 |pages=461 |date=February 1997 |pmid=9056791 |pmc=2125988 |doi=10.1136/bmj.314.7079.461d}}</ref>
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