Recent analysis shows high-impact journals in 11 scientific fields
Do you know what the highest impact scientific journals are in the fields that matter to you?
According to a recent analysis conducted with data from Essential Science IndicatorsSM, the Thomson Web-based evaluation tool, Nature and Science top the lists in 11 broad scientific fields.
Essential Science Indicators helps users measure scientific trends and ranks the performance of journals, institutions, countries, and researchers by specific fields. Six-year data from this resource reveals the must-read journals for researchers concerned with:
- Molecular biology and genetics
- Physics
- Biology and biochemistry
- Space science
- Clinical medicine
- Plant and animal sciences
- Pharmacology and toxicology
- Microbiology
- Chemistry
- Neuroscience and behavior
- Immunology
Science takes the top spot in six of these fields; Nature ranks first in the other five. Another notable highly ranked journal is the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), which ranked in the top 10 in nine of the eleven fields.
To see the full survey results, go to Science Watch at: www.sciencewatch.com/jan-feb2005/sw_jan-feb2005_page1.htm. The survey defines “papers” as regular scientific articles, review articles, proceeding papers and research notes published in journals indexed by Thomson. Science Watch narrowed the journal rankings by exempting journals that exclusively publish review articles, concentrating on journals that primarily publish original research, such as discovery accounts. Journals that had not been published for the full six-year time period were also excluded from the study. Essential Science Indicators assigned scientific categories to articles from multi-disciplinary journals, such as Nature and Science, by evaluating the articles’ citations.