Articles by Latin American Authors in Prestigious Journals Have Fewer Citations PLOS ONE Volume: 3 Issue: 11 Article Number: e3804 Published: NOV 25 2008

[Eugene Garfield]

Articles by Latin American Authors in Prestigious Journals Have Fewer
Citations

 

 

  

 

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Author(s): Meneghini R
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_
mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=3Fp6NhlLP5jogc1mGlI&name=Meneghini%2
0R&ut=000265451100004&pos=1>  (Meneghini, Rogerio), Packer AL
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_
mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=3Fp6NhlLP5jogc1mGlI&name=Packer%20AL
&ut=000265451100004&pos=2>  (Packer, Abel L.), Nassi-Calo L
<http://apps.isiknowledge.com/DaisyOneClickSearch.do?product=WOS&search_
mode=DaisyOneClickSearch&db_id=&SID=3Fp6NhlLP5jogc1mGlI&name=Nassi-Calo%
20L&ut=000265451100004&pos=3>  (Nassi-Calo, Lilian) 

Source: PLOS ONE    Volume: 3    Issue: 11  Article Number: e3804
Published: NOV 25 2008   

Times Cited: 3
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CitingArticles&SID=3Fp6NhlLP5jogc1mGlI&db_id=WOS&parentQid=1&parentDoc=1
&recid=182708757>      References: 16
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tedRefList&SID=3Fp6NhlLP5jogc1mGlI&db_id=WOS&parentQid=1&parentDoc=1&rec
id=182708757>       Citation Map <javascript:void();>      

Abstract: Background: The journal Impact factor (IF) is generally
accepted to be a good measurement of the relevance/quality of articles
that a journal publishes. In spite of an, apparently, homogenous
peer-review process for a given journal, we hypothesize that the country
affiliation of authors from developing Latin American (LA) countries
affects the IF of a journal detrimentally. 

Methodology/Principal Findings: Seven prestigious international
journals, one multidisciplinary journal and six serving specific
branches of science, were examined in terms of their IF in the Web of
Science. Two subsets of each journal were then selected to evaluate the
influence of author's affiliation on the IF. They comprised
contributions (i) with authorship from four Latin American (LA)
countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) and (ii) with authorship
from five developed countries (England, France, Germany, Japan and USA).
Both subsets were further subdivided into two groups: articles with
authorship from one country only and collaborative articles with
authorship from other countries. Articles from the five developed
countries had IF close to the overall IF of the journals and the
influence of collaboration on this value was minor. In the case of LA
articles the effect of collaboration (virtually all with developed
countries) was significant. The IFs for non-collaborative articles
averaged 66% of the overall IF of the journals whereas the articles in
collaboration raised the IFs to values close to the overall IF.

Conclusion/Significance: The study shows a significantly lower IF in the
group of the subsets of non-collaborative LA articles and thus that
country affiliation of authors from non-developed LA countries does
affect the IF of a journal detrimentally. There are no data to indicate
whether the lower IFs of LA articles were due to their inherent inferior
quality/relevance or psycho-social trend towards under-citation of
articles from these countries. However, further study is required since
there are foreseeable consequences of this trend as it may stimulate
strategies by editors to turn down articles that tend to be under-cited.

Document Type: Article 

Language: English 

KeyWords Plus: IMPACT FACTOR; SCIENCE; PUBLICATIONS; INDICATORS 

Reprint Address: Meneghini, R (reprint author), Latin Amer & Caribbean
Ctr Hlth Sci Informat, BIREME PAHO WHO, Sao Paulo, Brazil 

E-mail Addresses: rogerio.meneghini at bireme.org 

Publisher: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 185 BERRY ST, STE 1300, SAN
FRANCISCO, CA 94107 USA 

			

 

 

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Eugene Garfield, PhD. email:  garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu
<mailto:garfield at codex.cis.upenn.edu>  
home page: www.eugenegarfield.org <http://www.eugenegarfield.org/> 
Tel: 215-243-2205 Fax: 610-560-4749

Chairman Emeritus, Thomson Reuters Scientific (formerly ISI)
1500 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130-4067

President, The Scientist LLC. www.the-scientist.com
<http://www.the-scientist.com/>    
400 Market Street, Suite 1250, Philadelphia, PA 19106-2501
Past President, American Society for Information Science and Technology
(ASIS&T) www.asist.org <http://www.asist.org/>  

 

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