Original Contribution
The American Journal of Gastroenterology (2005) 100, 2436–2437; doi:10.1111/j.1572-0241.2005.00324.x
The Journal Impact Factor: Judging a Book by Its Cover
Nimish Vakil MD, FACG1
1University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison, and Marquette University College of Health Sciences, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Correspondence: Nimish Vakil, MD, FACG, Aurora Sinai Medical Center, 945 North12th Street, Room 4040, Milwaukee, WI 53233
Received 17 July 2005; Revised 0000; Accepted 19 July 2005.
Abstract
Journal impact factors have been used to evaluate the quality of the work of an individual author and as a guide to the quality of a given study. Despite a rough correlation between the quality of an article and the impact factor of the journal it is published in, the reader cannot be sure of the value of an individual article without a careful appraisal of its content.
