Editorial: What’s the impact of an impact factor? And why CONJ should stay out of the competition

Sally Thorne

Abstract


The CONJ Editor-in-Chief is often asked by prospective authors why the journal does not have an impact factor. In order to answer that question, it is important to provide a bit of context as to what that metric entails, how a journal comes to have one, and what the care and feeding of an impact factor can do to influence a journal’s strategic direction. 


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References


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