Dora the Brave.

I f you notice any particularly fidgety journal editors this month don’t worry—this is merely a symptom of the imminent release of the next round of the dreaded, dreadful Journal Impact Factors (JIFs). Editors are concerned, because the JIF directly impacts their journal, as it influences if researchers choose it to publish their research. JIF has a number of flaws, but one entirely outside an editor’s control is noise: a few citations to a single paper can displace a journal in the IF rank list pecking order. Indeed, the JIF would appear to be elaborated to the astonishing significance of three decimal places precisely to minimize the number of ties in journal ranking tables—even if this is at the expense of statistical significance (see ASCB post “A False Sense of Precision”). Matters are worse for journals just below an arbitrary IF threshold set by research assessment policies. A few years ago, when this journal dipped below 10, its editors were on occasion invited back by senior faculty to discuss submission of their work once the JIF had returned to a level deemed relevant by their institution. The only immunity to such JIF excesses appears to be to sport a wellrecognized journal name in lieu of perceived JIF deficiencies. Indeed, the remarkable influence of brand recognition is borne testament by the rapid proliferation of journal families around a number of well-recognized names. As always, there will be winners and losers in this year’s JIF league tables—but do these numbers reflect real differences in the quality and interest of the science published in the affected journals? The power of JIF