Journal Impact Factor Strongly Correlates with the Citedness of the Median Journal Paper

The authors test the validity of the claim that the journal IF reflects the citedness of the majority of a journal's papers or, otherwise, try to disprove the widely reported myth that the IF depends on only a few highly cited papers. To show this the coefficients of correlation between the journal IF and the citation score of the median paper (by citation score) of the journals in five JCR specialty categories are calculated. The data for the analysis were collected from Thomson-Reuters Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science. About 500 journals in 5 different subject categories are considered. It was found that the coefficients of correlation, r, are very high -- close to 1. The authors believe that their finding of very high correlation of IF values and the median citation rates provides convincing evidence that IF values are not due to a few highly cited papers but rather characterizes the majority of the journal's papers.