---- "Alexandre F. Souza" <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Julie, (stuff cut out)
> I am also not a fan of high-impact journals. In a web era like ours, > articles are searched for easily and most people tends to pick them > according to affinity to current interests and not so much by the > "importance" of the vehicle. We should free ourselves from the > largely psychological need to publish in famous journals. Not agreeing or disagreeing with the above, just asking: Are these journals "high impact" for a reason? Of course, by definition, high impact says that the reports in them are cited more frequently than are reports in other journals. But is that because the articles are more meaningful? Is it because the journals are best known? Certainly, someone who publishes in _Nature_ , _Ecology_, or _Science_ becomes better known than someone who publishes in (just as an example, not to denigrate it as a medium or a source, its articles are good) _The Southwestern Association of Naturalists_. More people read the former journals than read the latter one. The reviewing is considered to be more rigorous. Are the reports more likely to become discussed and to lead to scientific progress? Some things to think about. mcneely
