Announcement of first time Cytojournal impact factor for 2012 coincides with Cytojournal decade celebration (2004-2013)

Keynotes from the New Editor-in-Chief of <b><i>Acta Cytologica</i></b> and ‘Announcement of First Time <b><i>Cytojournal</i></b> Impact Factor for 2012 Coincides with <b><i>Cytojournal</i></b> Decade Celebration (2004-2013)'

“…Clearly, this would have resulted in more citations for Cytojournal and thus increase IF; a quick scan of articles in previous issues showed that most of the cited articles were by Cytopathology Foundation members, the editors and editorial members of Cytojournal ! Although most of the original articles have citations that are not biased, the letters to the editor and the editor's replies were ‘loaded' with Cytojournal citations [1,4]. This is just one way that editors can maneuver a surge of the IF of their journal.…”

“…I read with interest the editorial in Cytojournal by Shidham and DeMay [1] concerning their excitement at the announcement of the first-time Cytojournal impact factor (IF) for 2012. I would like to correlate it with your editorial in Acta Cytologica [2].…”

“…Editors should not manipulate citations, for example by ‘over-citation' in their letters and replies just to increase the IF of their journal. I therefore consider the comparison between the cytopathology journals, particularly with Acta Cytologica , in table 1 and figure 2 in the editorial [1] by Shidham and DeMay to be unfair!…”

“…The statement ‘It is observed that the work of authors who publish in open access journals with free global access is more visible and therefore has increased citations rates for all good quality articles' might also result in a bias due to self-citations or selective citations by members of the same foundation to which the journal is affiliated as well as editors and editorial members of the same journal. Third, figure 1 in their editorial [1] illustrates that open access means pay more in order to be read! This alternative opportunity to publish in open-access journals means that accepted articles are more likely to be published faster and will thus be cited sooner.…”

“…I agree that open access might have played a part, but other factors played the principal role. The references in their editorial [1] indicate that manipulation by self-citations and selective citations is one factor (as an example, seven self-citations by Shidham are included). Eighty-one percent of all the citations in the reference list in the editorial were from Cytojournal articles and only 19% were from other journals.…”