Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Crème de la crème in forensic science and legal medicine

The most highly cited articles, authors and journals 1981–2003

  • Review Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Legal Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The importance and prestige of a scientific journal is increasingly being judged by the number of times the articles it publishes are cited or referenced in articles published in other scientific journals. Citation counting is also used to assess the merits of individual scientists when academic promotion and tenure are decided. With the help of Thomson, Institute for Scientific Information (Thomson ISI) a citation database was created for six leading forensic science and legal medicine journals. This database was used to determine the most highly cited articles, authors, journals and the most prolific authors of articles in the forensic sciences. The forensic science and legal medicine journals evaluated were: Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFS), Forensic Science International (FSI), International Journal of Legal Medicine (IJLM), Medicine, Science and the Law (MSL), American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology (AJFMP), and Science and Justice (S&J). The resulting forensics database contained 14,210 papers published between 1981 and 2003. This in-depth bibliometric analysis has identified the crème de la crème in forensic science and legal medicine in a quantitative and objective way by citation analysis with focus on articles, authors and journals.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Horton R (1998) A fair reward. Lancet 352:892

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Adam D (2002) The counting house. Nature 415:726–729

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Garfield E (1979) Citation indexing for studying science. Nature 227:669–671

    Google Scholar 

  4. Garfield E (1979) Citation indexing, its theory and application in science, technology and humanities. ISI Press, Philadelphia

  5. Cronin B (1984) The citation process: the role and significance of citations in scientific communication. Taylor Graham, London

    Google Scholar 

  6. Jones AW (1998) Some thoughts and reflections on authorship. Alcohol Alcohol 31:11–15

    Google Scholar 

  7. Grinnell F (1992) The scientific attitude. Guilford Press, London, New York

  8. Sindermann CJ (2001) Winning the games scientists play. Perseus, Cambridge MA

  9. Jones AH, McLellan F (eds) (2000) Ethical issues in biomedical publication. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

  10. Williams G (1998) Misleading, unscientific and unjust: the United Kingdoms research assessment exercise. BMJ 316:1079–1082

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Reynolds TM, Wierzbicki AS (2004) Does activity in research correlate with visibility? J Clin Pathol 57:426–427

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. King J (1987) A review of bibliometrics and other science indicators and their role in research evaluation. J Inform Sci 13:261–276

    Google Scholar 

  13. King DA (2004) The scientific impact of nations. Nature 430:311–316

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Lawrence PA (2003) The politics of publication. Nature 422:259–260

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Wu R (2004) Making an impact. Nature 428:206–207

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. MacRoberts MH, MacRoberts BR (1989) Citation analysis and the science policy arena. Trends Biochem Sci 14:8–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Garfield E (1998) How can impact factors be improved. BMJ 313:411–413

    Google Scholar 

  18. Seglen PO (1997) Citation and journal impact factors: questionable indicators of research quality. Allergy 52:1050–1056

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Opthof T (2001) Sense and nonsense about impact factors. Cardiovasc Res 33:1–7

    Google Scholar 

  20. Jones AW (2003) Impact factors of forensic science and toxicology journals—what do the numbers really mean? Forensic Sci Int 133:1–8

    Google Scholar 

  21. Garfield E (1964) Science citation index, a new dimension in indexing. Science 144:649–654

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Garfield E (1987) 100 Citation classics from the Journal of the American Medical Association. JAMA 257:52–59

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Terajima K, Åneman A (2003) Citation classics in anaesthesia and pain journals: a literature review in the era of the internet. Acta Anaesthsiol Scand 47:655–663

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Cronin B, Atkins HB (2000) The web of knowledge—A Festschrift in honor of Eugene Garfield. ASIS Monograph series, Information Today Inc., Medford

  25. Cole S (1989) Citations and the evaluation of individual scientists. Trends Biochem Sci 14:9–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Hamilton DP (1990) Publishing by and for the numbers. Science 250:1131–1132

    Google Scholar 

  27. Foster KR, Huber PW (1999) Judging science; scientific knowledge and the federal courts. MIT Press, Cambridge

  28. Hamilton DP (1991) Research papers: who’s uncited now? Science 251:25

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Garfield E (1996) When to cite. Library Q 66:449–458

    Google Scholar 

  30. Jones AW (1995) Evaluating the work of forensic scientists by citation analysis. J Forensic Sci 40:529–530

    Google Scholar 

  31. Jones AW (1998) Citation trends and practices in the Journal of Forensic Sciences as documented by ISI’s journal citation report. J Forensic Sci 43:439–444

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

David A. Pendlebury, analyst with Thomson ISI (Institute for Scientific Information), Philadelphia, PA., generously helped in acquiring the forensics database used for this study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forensic Toxicology, University Hospital, 581 85 , Linköping, Sweden

    Alan Wayne Jones

Authors
  1. Alan Wayne Jones
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alan Wayne Jones.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jones, A.W. Crème de la crème in forensic science and legal medicine. Int J Legal Med 119, 59–65 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-004-0512-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-004-0512-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation