Among Review Journals, Biochemistry Serial Tops The List

For seven of the past 10 years, the Annual Review of Biochemistry has exhibited the highest impact of any review journal (or nonreview journal, for that matter) in the life sciences. In 1988, its impact rating stood at a towering 48.3, a figure well above the second ranking journal Pharmacological Reviews, which had a rating of 29.4. The accompanying table lists the top 10 review journals, according to their 1988 impact ratings. Impact figures are measures of how often the average article in a particular journal is cited over a given period. The 1988 impact rating was calculated by dividing the number of citations a journal's 1986 and 1987 articles received in 1988 by the number of articles the journal published in those two years. Journals devoted exclusively to review literature are often excluded from studies that examine high-impact periodicals. One reason, according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia, which annually calculates impact figures for the journals it indexes in its Journal Citation Reports/Science Citation Index, is that articles published in review journals tend to receive more citations per paper than those appearing in other, "regular" journals. That is because review articles summarize in a convenient form much of the recent work in a field. As such, they prove useful to researchers who desire economy in their citations. It should be stated, as well, that scientists also read reviews to stay current and to broaden their perspective. In 1988 the five highest-impact journals were all review periodicals (those ranked Nos. 1 through 4 in the table). Only the nonreview journals Cell, New England Journal of Medicine, and Science ranked in impact as high as or higher than the review journals listed here. Cell had a 1988 impact rating of 23.9, while NEJM's was 21.1, and Science's was 16.5, making these three the highest impact nonreview journals that year (The Scientist, July 24, 1989, page 14). These journals also carry reviews, which helps boost their impact. Rank Journal1988Immediacy Rating1988Immediacy Rating 1. Annual Review of Biochemistry 48.3 3.4 2. Pharmacological Reviews 29.4 0.1 3. Annual Review of Immunology 25.4 3.8 4. Annual Review of Cell Biology 24.2 0.2 5. Advances in Chemical Physics 24.0 3.5 6. Advances in Cyclic Nucleotide Research 18.2 * 7. Annual Review of Neuroscience 17.0 2.8 8. Advances in Protein Chemistry 16.5 0 9. Advances in Immunology 16.4 1.2 10. Microbiological Reviews 16.3 1.3 * No 1988 papers indexed in 1988 SOURCE: Institute for Scientific Information's Journal Citation Reports/Science Citation Index, 1988 As mentioned above, the leader in citation impact during the past decade has been the Annual Review of Biochemistry, published by Annual Reviews Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif. Introduced in 1932, it was the first review journal published by the nonprofit firm. Today, 27 different volumes appear under the Annual Reviews flag, covering a wide range of subjects, from computer science to entomology. Three other Annual Review volumes - dealing with immunology, cell biology, and neuroscience - appear in the top 10 for 1988 as well. In 1986 and 1987, the Annual Review of Biochemistry published a total of 67 articles. These were cited 3,237 times in 1988. That gave this review journal an impact rating of 48.3. This figure is markedly better than its 1987 rating of 35.1, which resulted from the 2,596 citations in 1987 of the 74 articles it published in 1985 and 1986. The second hottest review journal in 1988 was Pharmacological Reviews, published by Williams & Wilkins, with an impact rating of 29.4. Its rank in the top 10 has fluctuated widely over the years: It ranked eighth in 1987 and ninth in 1986, but placed first in 1982. Yet, from 1983 to 1984, it did not appear at all in the top 10 among review journals. On average, this journal publishes 10 or fewer papers per year. The Annual Review of Immunology, which ranked third in 1988 with a rating of 25.4, has consistently occupied a position among the top 10 that has ranged from second to fourth since 1985. Covering the same research field is Advances in Immunology, which ranked ninth in 1988, but first in 1980 and 1981. In fact, if all the review journals in the top 10 were grouped by subject category, four would cluster in biochemistry and molecular biology (Annual Review of Biochemistry, Annual Review of Cell Biology, Advances in Cyclic Nucleotide Research, and Advances in Protein Chemistry). Other disciplines represented are immunology (Nos. 3 and 9), pharmacology (No. 2), neuroscience (No. 7), microbiology (No. 10), and chemical physics (No. 5), which appeared first in the top 10 as recently as 1987 and is the only non-life sciences journal represented in the table. If this listing of high-impact review journals were extended to 30, a more diverse set of research areas would emerge, including plant physiology, electroanalytical chemistry, nuclear physics, and astronomy and astrophysics. Despite their high citation rates, review articles and the journals that publish them are often considered less "important" or "immediate" than accounts of original research. Yet a cursory examination of the 10 review journals listed here reveals that three of these publications placed within the top 10 of all journals - both review and nonreview - when ranked by another ISI measure: immediacy. Immediacy measures how quickly a journal's articles are cited. The 1988 immediacy rating was calculated by dividing the number of all 1988 citations received by a journal's 1988 articles by the number of articles it published that same year. In 1988 the Annual Review of Immunology ranked fifth among all journals in terms of immediacy, while Advances in Chemical Physics ranked seventh, and the Annual Review of Biochemistry held eighth place. The only journals with 1988 immediacy ratings higher than that of the Annual Review of Immunology were The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, and Cell. Abigail Grissom is a freelance science writer based in Philadelphia.

Among Review Journals, Biochemistry Serial Tops The List

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