WHAT IS JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS?
Journal Citation Reports® (JCR®) provides a
systematic, objective means to evaluate the
world’s leading research journals. It offers
a unique perspective for journal evaluation
and comparison by accumulating and
tabulating citation and article counts from
virtually all specialties in the sciences, social
sciences, and technology fields.
To help you compare journals and discover
which are the most significant to you,
Journal Citation Reports can show:
• Most frequently cited journals in a field
• Hottest journals in a field
• Highest impact journals in a field
• Most published articles in a field
• Subject category data for benchmarking
Coverage in Two Editions
JCR citation data comes from over 10,500
journals, representing over 2,500 publishers
worldwide in over 230 disciplines. Each
annual edition contains the previous year’s
publication data and shows the relationship
between citing and cited journals in a clear,
easy-to-use framework.
JCR Comes with Two Editions:
• JCR Science Edition: Contains data
from over 8,000 journals in 171 subject
categories.
• JCR Social Sciences Edition: Over 2,900
journals in the 55 subject categories.
JOURNAL CITATION
REPORTS®
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NAVIGATION OVERVIEW
From the JCR homepage, select a JCR
edition, a year, and one of the following
search options.
SUBJECT CATEGORY
This option lists all the journals within a
specific subject category or discipline, or
alternatively, category-level data that can
be used for benchmarking. You can choose
more than one subject category.
PUBLISHER
This option lists all the journals published
by a specific publisher. You can choose more
than one publisher.
COUNTRY
This option lists all the journals published
in a specific country. You can choose more
than one country.
SEARCH FOR A SPECIFIC JOURNAL
You can search for a specific journal by
full title, abbreviated title, title word, or
ISSN. See left sidebar for more information
and examples.
VIEW ALL JOURNALS
Use this option to list all of the journals in
the JCR edition and year you selected on the
JCR homepage. The JCR product displays
all journals alphabetically by abbreviated
journal title. You can find the full title of a
journal at the top of the Full Record page.
JOURNAL SUMMARY LIST PAGE
Journals from the selected JCR edition and
year that meet your search criteria display
on the Journal Summary List page. From
the Summary page:
• View summary details
• View a listing of all journal title changes
occurring in the past two years
• View detailed information by clicking a
journal’s abbreviated title to access the
Full Record page, and
• Select journals to add to your
marked list
FULL RECORD PAGE
You can find complete details about each
journal on the Full Record page, including
the full title of the journal and publisher
information. The table below the title
displays information about the journal
record. Links take you to expanded details
on the page.
Total Cites
Total Cites indicate the total number of
times that each journal has been cited by all
journals included in the database within the
current JCR year.
Impact Factor
The Impact Factor identifies the frequency
with which an average article from a journal
is cited in a particular year. You can use this
number to evaluate or compare a journal’s
relative importance to others in the same
field or see how frequently articles are cited
to determine which journals may be better
for your collection.
Impact Factor Trend Graph
This graph shows the Impact Factor of a
journal over the last five years. It measures
the frequency with which the average article
in a journal is cited in a particular year, and
compares the impact of a journal over the
last five years.
Five-Year Impact Factor
The Five-Year Impact Factor is the average
number of times articles from the journal
published in the last five years have been
cited in the JCR year. This metric can be
used to better gauge the impact of journals
in fields where the influence of published
research evolves over a longer period of time.
Immediacy Index
The Immediacy Index measures how
frequently the average article from a journal
is cited within the same year as publication.
This number is useful for evaluating journals
that publish cutting-edge research.
Article Counts
This is the number of articles published in a
journal in a particular year or years.
Cited Half-Life
The Cited Half-Life benchmarks the age
of cited articles by showing the number
of years back from the current year that
account for 50 percent of the total number
of citations to a journal in the current year.
This number is useful in making collection
management and archiving decisions. A
publisher may use this number to adjust
editorial policies to compete in different
market segments.
SEARCHING OPTIONS
Specific Journal Search
Search for a specific journal
1. From the JCR homepage, select the
Search for a specific journal option.
2. Click Submit to display the Journal
Search page.
3. Select one of the following search
options: Full Journal Title, Journal
Abbreviation, Title Word, or ISSN.
4. Enter your search query.
Capitalization does not matter. Use
the asterisk (*) wildcard in the search
query to find all journals that match
the search query.
Full Journal Title
Find journals with full titles that match
the search query.
• Journal of Cell Biology finds only
that journal.
• Journal of Cell* finds Journal of
Cell Biology, Journal of Cellular
Biochemistry, Journal of Cellular
Plastics, etc.
• Journal* finds all journals
beginning with the word Journal.
Journal Abbreviation
Find journals with the abbreviated
version of the journal title that matches
the search query.
• J Cell Biol finds Journal of
Cell Biology.
• J Cell* finds Journal of Cell Biology,
Journal of Cellular Biochemistry,
Journal of Cellular Plastics, etc.
• J Cell Bio* finds Journal of Cell
Biology and Journal of Cellular
Biochemistry.
Title Word
Find journals with titles that contain the
word in the search query.
• Cell finds Cell, Journal of Cell
Biology, Plant Cell, etc.
• Cell* finds Cell, Journal of Cell
Biology, Plant Cell, etc.
• Cell Bio* finds Cell Biochemistry
and Biophysics, Journal of
Cell Biology, Cell Biology and
Toxicology, etc.
ISSN Number
Find journals with the ISSN that
matches exactly the number in the
search query. Do not use wildcards in
this type of search.
• 0248-4900 finds the journal that’s
ISSN is 0248-4900.
• 02484900 finds the journal that’s
ISSN is 0248-4900.
QUICK REFERENCE CARD - JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS
Citing Half-Life
The Citing Half-Life identifies the number of
years from the current year that account
for 50% of the cited references from articles
published by a journal in the current year.
Used together with the Cited Half-Life,
this number aids the evaluation of
editorial policies.
Cited Journal Graph
This graph shows the distribution by cited
year of citations to articles published in the
selected journal.
Citing Journal Graph
This graph shows the distribution by cited
year of citations from current year articles in
the selected journal.
Source Data Table
The Source Data table provides information
regarding the number of review articles
versus original research articles that are
published by a particular journal. This
number also includes the number of
references cited by the articles. A blank
entry indicates that the references from a
journal were not processed for inclusion in
the citation indexes.
Cited Journal Data
The Cited Journal page identifies those
publications that most frequently cite a
particular journal. These citation links can
reveal a journal’s subject orientation, point
to its closest peer or competitor publication,
and highlight a specialty-specific network
of journals.
Citing Journal Data
The Citing Journal page identifies those
publications that were most frequently cited
by a particular journal. These citation links
can reveal a journal’s subject orientation,
point to its closest peer or competitor
publication, and highlight a specialty-
specific network of journals.
Rank in Category
This information places a journal in the
larger context of its assigned subject
area(s). The Rank in Category table displays
the journal’s numerical rank and its quartile
distribution based on Impact Factor. The
box plot graph visualizes the quartile
distribution of journal Impact Factors in
each category, as well as the mean and
median Impact Factor values and any
outlier values for the category.
Journal Self-Cites (adjusted Impact Factor)
This table shows what percentage of a
journal’s total citation count is a result of
journal self-citation (e.g. a paper in
Nature
cites another paper published in
Nature).
The table displays Total Cites, Total Cites
without self-cites, Impact Factor, and an
adjusted Impact Factor excluding journal
self-cites.
Related Journals
The Related Journals page identifies
journals which have a subject relationship
with the object journal based on citations
either given or received. They are ranked
by their degree of relatedness. This list
can be useful for identifying journals that
are dependent upon one another, but
which may be classified in different subject
categories.
Subject Category Data
Aggregate category data is available for
all subject categories in the JCR. These
category statistics can be useful for
placing journal data in a larger context.
All data elements available for individual
journals are also available at the category
level, including Aggregate Impact Factor,
Aggregate Immediacy Index and Aggregate
Cited/Citing Half-Life.
CONDITIONS THAT MAY AFFECT JOURNAL
RANKINGS AND IMPACT FACTORS
• If a journal publishes a large number
of reviews one year, there may be a
temporary increase in the number of
citations received.
• Sudden changes in a journal’s size can
affect the Impact Factor. For example,
when an article count drops, the Impact
Factor may rise temporarily.
• In the first year after a journal title
change, the new title is listed without an
Impact Factor because the article count
for the two preceding years used in the
Impact Factor calculations is zero.
MARKED JOURNAL LIST
The Marked Journal List page displays
all the journals you have marked during
a session. Up to 500 journals display on
the Marked Journal List page.
You can mark journals on the Journal
List Summary page by selecting the
Mark check box next to the records you
want, and then clicking Update Marked
List. You can also click Mark All to add
all records to your marked list.
On the Full Record page, select the
Mark check box to add the record to your
marked list. Click the Marked List button
on the toolbar to go to the Marked
Journal List page.
Note: The Marked Journal List page
keeps all your marked journals while you
are searching through a particular JCR
edition and year. If you change the JCR
edition or year, you are asked if you want
to clear the Marked List.
Use the available options on this
page to:
Print Records
1. Click the Format for Print button to
display journal information for the
marked journals.
2. Click your browser’s Print function to
print the file.
3. Click the Return to Marked List
button to return to the Marked
Journal List page.
Save Records
1. Click the Save to File button to
display a File Download dialog box.
2. Click the Save button to display the
Save As dialog box.
3. Type a file name in the File Name
text box. Ensure that you give the file
name a .txt extension.
4. Select a folder to store the saved
text file.
5. Click the Save button.
Remove Records
1. Clear the Mark check box next to the
journal(s) you wish to remove.
2. Click the Update Marked List button
to redisplay the list with the selected
journals removed. You can also
click the Clear Marked List button
to remove all the journals from the
marked list.
QUICK REFERENCE CARD - JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS
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FIND OUT MORE ABOUT JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS
To learn more, visit about.jcr.incites.thomsonreuters.com or contact the office nearest you.
EIGENFACTOR® METRICS
Eigenfactor Metrics are based on the JCR
cited journal data and consider not just the
counts of citations a journal receives but
also the structure of the citation network
as a whole to measure citation influence in
the scholarly literature. These metrics are
available for JCR year 2007 and later.
More detailed information can be found at
http://www.eigenfactor.org.
Eigenfactor® Score
The Eigenfactor Score is measured using
the current JCR year citations to citable
items from the five previous years. While
the Impact Factor weighs each citation to
a journal equally, the Eigenfactor Score
assigns a greater weight to those citations
coming from influential journals, allowing
these journals to exert greater influence in
the determination of the rank of any journal
which they reference. The Eigenfactor Score
does not count journal self-citations. The
sum of Eigenfactor scores for all journals
is 100; each journals Eigenfactor Score is a
percentage of this total.
Article InfluenceTM Score
The Article Influence Score measures the
relative importance of the journal on a per-
article basis. It is the journal’s Eigenfactor
Score divided by the fraction of articles
published by the journal. That fraction is
normalized so that the sum total of articles
from all journals is 1.
The mean Article Influence Score is 1.00.
A score greater than 1.00 indicates that
articles in that journal have an above-
average influence; a score less than 1.00
indicates that the articles in the journal
have a below-average influence.
Getting Help
The Thomson Scientific Customer Support
Center provides you with a single point of
access for all available support materials
and reference tools for Journal Citation
Reports, including educational tutorials,
training and technical support.
http://wokinfo.com/training_support/
training/
Click the Help button on any page to get
detailed help on features, along with search
tips and examples. If you have questions
that are not addressed in the help, contact
the Technical Help Desk.
http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/
techsupport/
Questions about network connections and/
or the use of your Web browser should be
directed to your network administrator.
TUTORIAL AVAILABLE!
An educational tutorial of Journal Citation
Reports is available at:
http://wokinfo.com/training_support/
training/journal-citation-reports/.
