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IJE Advance Access originally published online on September 19, 2006
International Journal of Epidemiology 2006 35(5):1129-1130; doi:10.1093/ije/dyl191
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2006; all rights reserved.

Commentary

Commentary: The power of the unrelenting impact factor—Is it a force for good or harm?

Richard Smith

Former Editor, British Medical Journal, Clapham, London. E-mail: Richardswsmity@yahoo.co.uk

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

Fifteen years ago many editors and academics had never heard of impact factors. Now they are obsessed with them. When I was first editor of the BMJ in 1991 I would attend the editorial boards of our dozen specialist journals—Gut and Thorax, for example—and present data on the journals' impact factors. Usually nobody had heard of impact factors. I explained what they were—and people yawned. Now editors break open bottles of champagne if their impact factor rises by a tenth of a decimal point or burst into tears if it falls. They build their editorial strategies around increasing their impact factors. Authors, meanwhile, can quote the impact factors of the major journals and use them when deciding where to submit their papers. What is this thing called the impact factor? Why does it have such power? And . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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