ArticleFrontiers in psychology2018
The Impact Factor Fallacy.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Will top-ranked scientific publications become the preserve of "rich" groups? ASM editorial policy.mBio · 2026Article
- What are the ethical limits of claimed scientific authorship? a case report of relevance.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Article
- Characterizing Core Journals in Ophthalmology Literature Using Bradford's Law: A Bibliometric Analysis.Journal of academic ophthalmology (2017) · 2025Article
- Review
- Improving the quality of publications in and advancing the paradigms of clinical and social pharmacy practice research: the Granada Statements.European journal of hospital pharmacy : science and practice · 2024Article
- Answer to Letter to the Editor Regarding the Article "Brazilian and US-American Researchers Cite Articles Written by Brazilian Authors in Revista Brasileira de Ortopedia".Revista brasileira de ortopedia · 2024Article
- Top 100 cited articles in the thromboangiitis obliterans: a bibliometric analysis and visualized study.European journal of medical research · 2023Article
- [Improving the Quality of Publications in and Advancing the Paradigms of Clinical and Social Pharmacy Practice Research: The Granada Statements].Farmaceuticos comunitarios · 2023Article
- Automated indexing using NLM's Medical Text Indexer (MTI) compared to human indexing in Medline: a pilot study.Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2023Article
- Improving the quality of publications in and advancing the paradigms of clinical and social pharmacy practice research: the Granada Statements.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2023Article
- Improving the quality of publications in and advancing the paradigms of clinical and social pharmacy practice research: The Granada statements.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2023Article
- Improving the quality of publications in and advancing the paradigms of clinical and social pharmacy practice research: The Granada Statements.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2023Article
- Study results from journals with a higher impact factor are closer to "truth": a meta-epidemiological study.Systematic reviews · 2023Article
- Thirty-year survey of bibliometrics used in the research literature of pain: Analysis, evolution, and pitfalls.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Bibliometric evaluation of Forensic Science International as a scholarly journal within the subject category legal medicine.Forensic science international. Synergy · 2023Article
- A new tool for evaluating health equity in academic journals; the Diversity Factor.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- Biased, wrong and counterfeited evidences published during the COVID-19 pandemic, a systematic review of retracted COVID-19 papers.Quality & quantity · 2022Article
- Commentary: the first twelve years of the Journal of chemoinformatics.Journal of cheminformatics · 2022Article
- COVID-19 citation pandemic within the psychological knowledge domain.Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) · 2022Article
- Publication trends in telemedicine research originating from Canada.Healthcare management forum · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The use of the journal impact factor (JIF) as a measure for the quality of individual manuscripts and the merits of scientists has faced significant criticism in recent years. We add to the current criticism in arguing that such an application of the JIF in policy and decision making in academia is based on false beliefs and unwarranted inferences. To approach the problem, we use principles of deductive and inductive reasoning to illustrate the fallacies that are inherent to using journal-based metrics for evaluating the work of scientists. In doing so, we elaborate that if we judge scientific quality based on the JIF or other journal-based metrics we are either guided by invalid or weak arguments or in fact consider our uncertainty about the quality of the work and not the quality itself.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.