Twice in the last couple of months, Thompson ISI, the arbiters of the data about who makes reference to what in all of sciences, have made our day. They let authors from three major AJOB articles know that those articles are among the most cited in all of the sciences. One more time – that’s three articles in The American Journal of Bioethics that – just in the past three months – have been selected as among the most cited papers in all of the natural and social sciences and medicine.
So we’re feeling a little bit full of ourselves around here. Which shouldn’t surprise you since bioethicists as a rule take themselves far too seriously.
Anyway back to us: ISI is the organization that literally counts up the “citations” of all of the articles in all of the major journals, by looking at that same group of journals to see who’s referencing whom. Some journals produce articles that are cited a lot. When that starts to happen, you know that the authors and journals who are being cited are (by definition) influencing the field.
Why do we care?
In bioethics, lots of folks have begun to believe that if you want your work to be widely read and influential, you need to publish it in Science, Nature, JAMA or New England Journal – or one of a dozen or so other top tier science and medicine. After all, those journals are top tier precisely because they are the most cited!
Well if you want your bioethics article to be cited – that is, noticed and useful – in the world of the sciences and medicine, it would appear that where you want to be these days is with us. It is an exclusive bunch, too. We have little membership cards. So for a limited time, if you produce an article that gets us kudos like this, we’ll send you your choice from:
1) A Tin of AJOB Spam
2) A Selection ofonly slightly rustyLapel Buttons: GET AJOB; I NEED AJOB; and our favorite I GOT AJOB
Anyway enough about us.