Comments on: How to Read a Scientific Paper (Top Four Questions) http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/09/10/readpapers/ Take No Prisoners Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:40:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 By: La pseudo-science est-elle plus performante en matière de communication? | Le blog du Doc’ http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/09/10/readpapers/#comment-881 La pseudo-science est-elle plus performante en matière de communication? | Le blog du Doc’ Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:51:36 +0000 http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/09/10/readpapers/#comment-881 [...] peut, au passage, saluer des initiatives louables d’explication d’une méthode de lecture des articles scientifiques à l’usage de personnes qui n’ont pas forcément de background en sciences. [...] […] peut, au passage, saluer des initiatives louables d’explication d’une méthode de lecture des articles scientifiques à l’usage de personnes qui n’ont pas forcément de background en sciences. […]

]]> By: Darth Vasya http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/09/10/readpapers/#comment-752 Darth Vasya Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:23:47 +0000 http://thewaronbullshit.com/2007/09/10/readpapers/#comment-752 > You can also google the Journal’s “impact factor.” Higher is better. As it is, this is bad advice. The IF is a more or less good general indicator of journal quality, but! you can't always compare the IFs arbitrarily by their absolute value. A good physics journal might have an IF of, say, 6-something. Nano Letters, for instance, has the highest IF among the journals dedicated to such a popular subject as nanotech-almost 10. A more or less good biological journal can typically have an IF of 20+, while Nature and Science have around 30. At the same time, in some fields, an IF of (seemingly) as little as 2 may be tops. > You can also google the Journal’s “impact factor.” Higher is better.

As it is, this is bad advice. The IF is a more or less good general indicator of journal quality, but! you can’t always compare the IFs arbitrarily by their absolute value. A good physics journal might have an IF of, say, 6-something. Nano Letters, for instance, has the highest IF among the journals dedicated to such a popular subject as nanotech-almost 10. A more or less good biological journal can typically have an IF of 20+, while Nature and Science have around 30. At the same time, in some fields, an IF of (seemingly) as little as 2 may be tops.

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