Brazilian medical publications: citation patterns for Brazilian-edited and non-Brazilian literature

Abstract

Today, the quality of a scientific article depends on the periodical in which it is published and on the number of times the article is cited in the literature. In Brazil, the criteria for the evaluation of this scientific production are improving. However, there is still some resistance, with authors arguing that Brazilian publications must be preferentially addressed to the national readers and, therefore, they should ideally be written in Portuguese. In order to determine the kind of scientific journals cited in the reference lists of articles published in medical periodicals edited in Brazil, in the present study we determine the rate of Portuguese/English citations. Three issues of 43 periodicals (19 indexed in SciELO, 10 in PubMed, 10 in LILACS, and 4 in the ISIThompson base) of different medical specialties were analyzed, and the number of both Portuguese and English citations in the reference list of each article was recorded. The results showed that in Brazilianedited journals the mean number of citations/article was 20.9 ± 6.9 and the percentage of citations of international non-Brazilian periodicals was 86.0 ± 11.2%. Of the latter, 94.4 ± 7.0 are indexed by ISIThompson. Therefore, we conclude that Brazilian medical scientists cite the international non-Brazilian periodicals more than the national journals, and most of the cited papers are indexed by ISI-Thompson.

Who’s who and what’s what in Brazilian Public Health Sciences

“…Concerning the restriction of analysis to ISI records, one should consider that even though it does not properly cover Brazilian production in any field, it certainly does cover its mainstream production: 66% of studied authors had at least one paper in ISI records. The importance of ISI indexed papers seems acknowledged by Brazilian authors themselves according to a recent study of Cunha-Melo et al 10 who, studying Brazilian papers in different bibliographic bases (PubMed, SciELO, LILACS, and ISI), found that Brazilian authors' references were 86% to non-Brazilian journals, and from these 94% were to ISI indexed journals.…”

A Bibliometric Analysis of Evaluative Medical Education Studies

“…Bibliometric methods have been used to explore the productivity of researchers, institutions, and countries within given subject areas; to examine research trends and emphases in various disciplines; and to guide policy decision making. [4][5][6][7][8] In a 2007 article, Todres and colleagues 9 reviewed the medical education research published in 2004-2005 in two leading general medical journals (BMJ, Lancet) and what they considered to be the top two medical education journals (Medical Education, Medical Teacher). After examining medical education research topics, funding, and randomized controlled trial (RCT) rates in these publications, they argued that the field was stagnant and urgently needed resources to become rigorous and relevant.…”

O Desafio De Publicar Em Português

“…Estes sustentam, ainda, que se deveria estimular a publicação em inglês porque, mesmo as revistas mais respeitadas em países desenvolvidos como Alemanha, Japão, Espanha, França e Portugal, já estão a capitular na sua resistência linguística, passando a publicar em inglês. Pesquisadores deste grupo argumentam, também, que mesmo aqueles que publicam em português, em 86% das vezes, utilizam como fonte de consulta a literatura internacional em inglês nas revistas da sua área e que a suposta credibilidade do artigo lhe é conferida precisamente, pelas referências em inglês (8) . Finalmente, este grupo considera que a feroz competição pela publicação seria um mecanismo saudável de seleção e que a sobrevivência neste processo é indispensável para caracterizar a chamada "boa ciência".…”