Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor

Abstract

BackgroundIn times of globalization there is an increasing use of English in the medical literature. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of English-language articles in multi-language medical journals on their international recognition – as measured by a lower rate of self-citations and higher impact factor (IF).Methods and FindingsWe analyzed publications in multi-language journals in 2008 and 2009 using the Web of Science (WoS) of Thomson Reuters (former Institute of Scientific Information) and PubMed as sources of information. The proportion of English-language articles during the period was compared with both the share of self-citations in the year 2010 and the IF with and without self-citations. Multivariable linear regression analysis was performed to analyze these factors as well as the influence of the journals‘ countries of origin and of the other language(s) used in publications besides English.We identified 168 multi-language journals that were listed in WoS as well as in PubMed and met our criteria. We found a significant positive correlation of the share of English articles in 2008 and 2009 with the IF calculated without self-citations (Pearson r=0.56, p = <0.0001), a correlation with the overall IF (Pearson r = 0.47, p = <0.0001) and with the cites to years of IF calculation (Pearson r = 0.34, p = <0.0001), and a weak negative correlation with the share of self-citations (Pearson r = -0.2, p = 0.009). The IF without self-citations also correlated with the journal‘s country of origin – North American journals had a higher IF compared to Middle and South American or European journals. ConclusionOur findings suggest that a larger share of English articles in multi-language medical journals is associated with greater international recognition. Fewer self-citations were found in multi-language journals with a greater share of original articles in English.

The top 100 cited articles on urological emergencies: A bibliometric analysis

“…[33] However, as it can be also seen in our research, even though in a very low percentage, some other languages as French, German, and Spanish had been preferred in these articles. It was seen that at least half (n=52) of the papers came from the USA and the UK in our study.…”

“…Self-citations can be an important scientometric criterion in determining values of the articles and scientific journals. [27,33] In our study, we detected very few self-citations (23/2588 citations, rate: 0.8%). This may indicate that the influential articles on urological emergencies are mostly cited by other authors and published in medical journals with high impact factor.…”

Is the impact factor the only game in town?

“…There is a heavy bias towards Western high quality journals and only 11.6% of the journals included in the Web of Science™ publish in a language that is not English. 2 The data used to calculate the IF are not available publically and it is worth mentioning that other groups have not been able to exactly replicate the IF released by TR. The calculation counts the number of citable items that a journal publishes over a two-year period (denominator) and how many citations these articles have received in the following year (year 3) (numerator).…”

Development of a methodology for scientometric analysis. application to study worldwide research on hardware architecture and cybernetics

“…(BrachoRiquelme et al, 1997;Diekhoff et al, 2013;Rodríguez & Rodríguez, 2013;Rojas-Sola & Aguilera-Garcia, 2014;Singh et al, 2007;Vakilian et al, 2015;Yue et al, 2014;Zell et al, 2010)]. …”