Division of Plastic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.
Aesthet Surg J. 2020 Sep 14;40(10):1136-1142. doi: 10.1093/asj/sjz336.
Citation skew refers to the unequal distribution of citations to articles published in a particular journal.
We aimed to assess whether citation skew exists within plastic surgery journals and to determine whether the journal impact factor (JIF) is an accurate indicator of the citation rates of individual articles.
We used Journal Citation Reports to identify all journals within the field of plastic and reconstructive surgery. The number of citations in 2018 for all individual articles published in 2016 and 2017 was abstracted.
Thirty-three plastic surgery journals were identified, publishing 9823 articles. The citation distribution showed right skew, with the majority of articles having either 0 or 1 citation (40% and 25%, respectively). A total of 3374 (34%) articles achieved citation rates similar to or higher than their journal's IF, whereas 66% of articles failed to achieve a citation rate equal to the JIF. Review articles achieved higher citation rates (median, 2) than original articles (median, 1) (P < 0.0001). Overall, 50% of articles contributed to 93.7% of citations and 12.6% of articles contributed to 50% of citations. A weak positive correlation was found between the number of citations and the JIF (r = 0.327, P < 0.0001).
Citation skew exists within plastic surgery journals as in other fields of biomedical science. Most articles did not achieve citation rates equal to the JIF with a small percentage of articles having a disproportionate influence on citations and the JIF. Therefore, the JIF should not be used to assess the quality and impact of individual scientific work.
引文偏倚是指在特定期刊上发表的文章的引文分布不均。
我们旨在评估整形外科学杂志中是否存在引文偏倚，并确定期刊影响因子（JIF）是否能准确反映单个文章的引文率。
我们使用期刊引证报告（Journal Citation Reports）识别整形外科学领域内的所有期刊。提取 2016 年和 2017 年发表的所有文章在 2018 年的引文数量。
确定了 33 种整形外科学杂志，共发表 9823 篇文章。引文分布呈右偏态，大多数文章的引文数要么为 0 要么为 1（分别占 40%和 25%）。共有 3374 篇（34%）文章的引文率与期刊的 IF 相似或更高，而 66%的文章未能达到与 JIF 相等的引文率。综述文章的引文率（中位数 2）高于原始文章（中位数 1）（P<0.0001）。总的来说，50%的文章贡献了 93.7%的引文，12.6%的文章贡献了 50%的引文。引文数量与 JIF 之间存在弱正相关（r=0.327，P<0.0001）。
与其他生物医学科学领域一样，整形外科学杂志中存在引文偏倚。大多数文章的引文率未达到 JIF，只有一小部分文章对引文和 JIF 有不成比例的影响。因此，JIF 不应用于评估单个科学工作的质量和影响力。
