Trayhurn P. "Citations and 'impact factor' - the Holy Grail" BRITISH JOURNAL OF NUTRITION 88 (1): 1-2 JUL 2002

[Eugene Garfield]

Posted below is an interesting paper by Dr. Paul Trayhurn.  I also thought
the readers of SIG-Metrics would be interested in the exchange of
correspondence between Paul Trayhurn and myself on this paper.

Eugene Garfield


____________________________________________________
EUGENE GARFIELD WROTE:

Dear Dr. Trayhurn:

It was most gracious of you to send me your editorial so promptly. I think
it is an extremely well reasoned and concise review of the issues involved.
However, I cannot resist commenting on your reference to the Lowry technique
and methods in general. Since the ISI current impact factors only take into
account papers published in the past few years, classic methods  do not play
a significant role. But even for other evaluative studies the number of
super cited classics is relatively very small indeed. A study of method
papers  would show that they do not on average achieve greater impact than
good research or clinical studies. The evidence for that can be found when
looking at journals which are devoted to methods. There are thousands of
method papers that prove to be of low impact.  The same may be said for many
review papers but on average they are cited about twice as often as research
papers.  We tend to  forget the mediocre. When seeking weaknesses in
citation analysis it is tempting to mention the most cited paper in history,
the Lowry method of protein measurement. Your reference to papers that are
repeatedly cited is equally anecdotal. In general bad science is mainly
ignored. There will always be a few exceptions, but it is difficult to
document a pattern.

I was perplexed by your comment that the paper by Durnin and Rahaman in 1967
was published before citations started to be collected. The  Science
Citation Index  source coverage begins with the 1945 literature. The  SCI
was launched in 1964 and in later years we added  two earlier decades. For
example, your journal, The BJN has been indexed in  SCI since its very first
issue in 1947.

Best wishes,
Eugene Garfield
_______________________________________________________________________

PAUL TRAYHURN RESPONDED:




Dear Dr Garfield

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on my Editorial and particularly for
clarifying the points where I have inadvertently misrepresented the
situation.
My reference to the Lowry technique and to methods was intended to reflect
the prejudice that exists within the community, as was the comment relating
to work subsequently shown to be wrong - but I should certainly have made
that clear and cited your work demonstrating that such assumptions have no
basis. I am also sorry that I did not appreciate that the the SCI goes back
to 1945 and as such my comments relating to the Durnin & Rahaman (1967)
paper are wrong.

Kind regards
Paul Trayhurn


_______________________________________________________________

Paul Trayhurn : p.trayhurn at liverpool.ac.uk

Full text of "Citations and 'impact factor' - the Holy Grail" available at:
http://www.nutritionsociety.org.uk/bjn/088/bjn0880001.htm



Title Citations and 'impact factor' - the Holy Grail
Author Trayhurn P
Journal BRITISH JOURNAL OF NUTRITION 88 (1): 1-2 JUL 2002

Document type: Editorial Material    Language: English
Cited References: 4
Times Cited: 1


Addresses:
Trayhurn P, Univ Liverpool, Dept Med, Liverpool L69 3GA, Merseyside, England
Univ Liverpool, Dept Med, Liverpool L69 3GA, Merseyside, England

Publisher:
C A B I PUBLISHING, WALLINGFORD

IDS Number:
572EC

ISSN:
0007-1145


 Cited Author            Cited Work                Volume      Page  Year

 ADAM D                NATURE                       415       726      2002
 DURNIN JVG            BRIT J NUTR                   21       681      1967
 JACKSON AS            BRIT J NUTR                   40       497      1978
 SEGLEN PO             BRIT MED J                   314       498      1997


When responding, please attach my original message
_______________________________________________________________________
Eugene Garfield, PhD.  email: garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu
home page: www.eugenegarfield.org
Tel: 215-243-2205 Fax 215-387-1266
President, The Scientist LLC. www.the-scientist.com
Chairman Emeritus, ISI www.isinet.com
Past President, American Society for Information Science and Technology
(ASIS&T)  www.asis.org
_______________________________________________________________________