The numbers game: The impact factor and all that jazz. (Editorial)

Archives of Sexual Behavior,  February, 2003  by Kenneth J. Zucker

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

During the Editor's undergraduate days in psychology (1968-72), he developed a love (perhaps even a paraphilia) for the scientific journals. During his prolonged tenure as a graduate student, he spent countless hours in the stacks, rummaging around, reading too many journal articles. By the mid-1970s, he had discovered Current Contents (CC), published by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI).

In the old days, prior to the era of the microcomputer and, later, the world of the Internet, he faithfully browsed through the weekly hard-copy issues of both the Social and Behavioral Sciences and Life Science editions of CC. With reprint ...