Nature slips further from pole position

Nature, for long the top dog of scientific journals, has slipped down the ratings as judged by impact factor Richard Gallagher reports in his blog at The Scientist.

In 2004 it was the top journal with an impact factor of 31.9, then slipped marginally behind Science and Cell in 2005. But the latest figures, for 2006, show a further slip: Science comes in at 30.0, Cell at 29.2 and Nature at 26.7.

The numbers are calculated as the total number of citations in the year 2006 to papers published in the years 2004 and 2005, divided by the number of papers published in 2004 and 2005. That's three-and-a-half fewer citations on average for a Nature paper versus a Science paper.

The usual government health warning about impact factors applies: if they tell you what you already know then they're probably correct; if they contradict what you expect then feel free to ignore them.

Expect to see more review articles in Nature in the next couple of years - review articles attract disproportionately higher numbers of citation than research articles so they are a simple way to bump up a journal's impact factor.