Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor
Open Access
- 17 October 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 8 (10), e76816
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076816
Abstract
In times of globalization there is an increasing use of English in the medical literature. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of English-language articles in multi-language medical journals on their international recognition – as measured by a lower rate of self-citations and higher impact factor (IF). We analyzed publications in multi-language journals in 2008 and 2009 using the Web of Science (WoS) of Thomson Reuters (former Institute of Scientific Information) and PubMed as sources of information. The proportion of English-language articles during the period was compared with both the share of self-citations in the year 2010 and the IF with and without self-citations. Multivariable linear regression analysis was performed to analyze these factors as well as the influence of the journals‘ countries of origin and of the other language(s) used in publications besides English. We identified 168 multi-language journals that were listed in WoS as well as in PubMed and met our criteria. We found a significant positive correlation of the share of English articles in 2008 and 2009 with the IF calculated without self-citations (Pearson r=0.56, p = <0.0001), a correlation with the overall IF (Pearson r = 0.47, p = <0.0001) and with the cites to years of IF calculation (Pearson r = 0.34, p = <0.0001), and a weak negative correlation with the share of self-citations (Pearson r = -0.2, p = 0.009). The IF without self-citations also correlated with the journal‘s country of origin – North American journals had a higher IF compared to Middle and South American or European journals. Our findings suggest that a larger share of English articles in multi-language medical journals is associated with greater international recognition. Fewer self-citations were found in multi-language journals with a greater share of original articles in English.This publication has 23 references indexed in Scilit:
- Artifactual Increase in Journal Self-CitationAnesthesia & Analgesia, 2011
- Temporal Trends in the Impact Factor of European versus USA Biomedical JournalsPLOS ONE, 2011
- Editors, Publishers, Impact Factors, and Reprint IncomePLoS Medicine, 2010
- Conflicts of Interest at Medical Journals: The Influence of Industry-Supported Randomised Trials on Journal Impact Factors and Revenue – Cohort StudyPLoS Medicine, 2010
- Self-Selected or Mandated, Open Access Increases Citation Impact for Higher Quality ResearchPLOS ONE, 2010
- Integrative Approach to Quality Assessment of Medical Journals Using Impact Factor, Eigenfactor, and Article Influence ScoresPLOS ONE, 2010
- Are Shorter Article Titles More Attractive for Citations? Cross-sectional Study of 22 Scientific JournalsCroatian Medical Journal, 2010
- A 9-Year Analysis of Bibliographical Trends for Journals in the Subject Category of General and Internal MedicineAccountability in Research, 2009
- Wie häufig werden deutschsprachige Medizinzeitschriften in der englischsprachigen Literatur zitiert? (Nachdruck) - Korreliert diese Rate mit dem Impact-Faktor, und wer zitiert? -Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde, 2002
- Selecting the language of the publications included in a meta-analysis: Is there a tower of babel bias?Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 1995