Abstract
The number of citations is not an adequate measure of taxonomic quality, which is a view that is shared with other scientific disciplines (Seglen1997; Valdecasas et al. 2000; Walter et al. 2003). A recent editorial in Nature claims that “... citations are an unreliable measure of importance" (Anon. 2010: 850) and uses two chemistry papers as an example. The first paper was cited 182 times in the same period that the other paper was cited only 13 times. However, the latter paper is recognized as ‘outstanding’ by the experts from the American Chemical Society, which would not be revealed by the arbitrary counting of citations. Similar examples have evoked critical editorial comments in high-impact journals. In the context of a possible future use of the Impact Factor (IF), the editor of EMBO Reports states:
References
Anon (2010) Nature's choices. Nature, 463, 850.
Agrawal, A.A. (2005) Corruption of journal Impact Factors. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 20, 157.
Archambault, É. & Larivière, V. (2009) History of the journal impact factor: Contingencies and consequences. Scientometrics, 79, 635–649.
Bornmmann, L. & Daniel, H.D. (2009) The state of h index research. Embo reports, 10, 2– 6.
Darwin, C. (1851) A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia, with Figures of all the Species. The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes. (Available at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ Accessed 24 May 2011)
Darwin, C. (1851) A Monograph on the Fossil Lepadidae, or, Pedunculated Cirripedes of Great Britain. (Available at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ Accessed 24 May 2011)
Darwin, C. (1854) A Monograph of the Sub-class Cirripedia, with Figures of all the Species. The Balanidae (or Sessile Cirripedes); the Verrucidae, etc. (Available at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ Accessed 24 May 2011)
Darwin, C. (1854) A Monograph on the Fossil Balanidæ and Verrucidæ of Great Britain. (Available at http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ Accessed 24 May 2011)
De Solla Price, D.J. (1969) The Structure of Publication in Science and Technology. In: Gruber, W.H., Marquis, D.G. (Eds.), Factors in the Transfer of Technology, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 91–104.
Ebach, M., Valdecasas, A.G. & Wheeler, Q.D. (2011) Impediments to taxonomy and users of taxonomy: Accessibility and Impact Evaluation. Cladistics 27 no. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2011.00348.x
Jacobs, H. (2009) Editorial. Pay to cite. EMBO Reports, 10, 1067.
Fernandez, F. & Wilson, E.O. (2008) Jose Celestino Mutis, the ants, and Pheidole mutisi sp. nov. Revista Colombiana de Entomologia, 34, 203–208.
Garfield, E. (1955) Citation indexes for science. Science, 122, 468–471.
Garfield, E. (2000) Taxonomy is small, but it has its citation classics. Nature, 413, 107.
Garfield, E. (2003) The meaning of the Impact Factor. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 3, 363–369.
Krell, F.T. (2000) Impact factors aren't relevant to taxonomy. Nature, 405, 507–508.
Krell, F.T. (2010) Should editors influence journal impact factors? Learned Publishing, 23, 59–62.
Mayr, E., Linsley, E.G. & Usinger, R.L. (1953) Methods and Principles of Systematic Zoology. McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 328.
Meier, R. & Lim, G.S. (2009) Conflict, convergent evolution, and the relative importance of immature and adult characters in Endopterygote Phylogenetics. Annual review of Entomology, 54, 85–104.
Page, R. (2009) Is taxonomy disadvantaged by standard measures of academic performance? In: http://network.nature.com/groups/taxonomy/forum/topics/3983, accessed 24 May 2011.
Patterson, M. (2009a) Is the end in cite? EMBO Reports, 10, 1186.
Patterson, M. (2009b) Article-level metrics at PLoS – addition of usage data. Available at: http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2009/09/article-level-metrics-at-plos-addition-of-usage-data/ Accessed 24 May 2011.
Seglen, P.O. (1997) Citations and journal impact factors: questionable indicators of research quality. Allergy, 52, 1050–1056.
Thomaz, S.M. & Martens, K. (2009) Alternative metrics to measure journal impacts: entering in a 'free market'. Hydrobiologia, 636, 7–10.
Valdecasas, A.G., Castroviejo, S. & Marcus, L.A. (1990) Reliance on the citation index undermines the study of biodiversity. Nature, 403, 698.
Viets, K.O. (1987) Die Milben des Süßwassers (Hydrachnellae und Halacaridae (part.), Acari). II.: Katalog. Sonderbände des Naturwiss. Vereins Hamburg, 8, 1–1012.
Walter, G., Bloch, S., Hunt, G. & Fisher, K. (2003) Counting on citations: a flawed way to measure quality. Medical Journal of Australia, 178, 280 - 281.
Wilson, E.O., Carpenter, F.M. & Brown, W.L. (1967a) The first Mesozoic ants. Science, 157, 1038–1040.
Wilson, E.O., Carpenter, F.M. & Brown, W.L. (1967b) The first Mesozoic ants, with description of a new subfamily. Psyche 74, 1–19.