Journal accused of manipulating impact factor
BMJ 1997; 314 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.314.7079.461d (Published 15 February 1997) Cite this as: BMJ 1997;314:461
- Richard Smith
- BMJ
The journal Leukemia, which is owned by Macmillan magazines, has been accused of trying to manipulate its impact factor, the measure used to rank the importance of scientific journals. The accusation comes from Terry Hamblin, consultant haematologist at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and editor of Leukemia Research, a rival to Leukemia.
Dr Hamblin has sent the BMJ a copy of a letter received by authors who had submitted a paper to Leukemia in October 1996 asking them to increase the number of references to papers published in Leukemia. This would increase the journal's impact factor, which is calculated by dividing the number of …
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