Publication in a Brazilian journal by Brazilian scientists whose papers have international impact

Rogério Meneghini

doi:10.1590/s0100-879x2010007500073

Abstract

Nine Brazilian scientists with an outstanding profile of international publications were invited to publish an original article in the same issue of a Brazilian Journal (Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências). The objective was to measure the impact of the papers on the number of citations to the articles, the assumption being that these authors would carry their international prestige to the Brazilian periodical. In a 2-year period there was a larger number of citations of these articles compared to others published in the same journal. Nevertheless, the number of citations in Brazilian journals did not equal the number of citations obtained by the other papers by the same authors in their international publications within the same 2-year period. The reasons for this difference in the number of citations could be either that less significant invited articles were submitted or that it was due to the intrinsic lack of visibility of the Brazilian journals, but this could not be fully determined with the present data. Also relevant was a comparison between the citations of Brazilian journals and the publication in Brazilian journals by these selected authors. A clear imbalance due to a remarkable under-citation of Brazilian authors by authors publishing in Brazilian journals raises the possibility that psychological factors may affect the decision of citing Brazilian journals.

Highlights

There is a general worldwide perception that authors of scientific papers from developing countries submit articles to national scientific journals usually as a second choice, especially when their area of investigation is at the cutting edge of science
The national journal is usually an alternative that is chosen after their articles have failed to be accepted by the editors of international journals whose reputations rest on the impact factor (IF), which is calculated by dividing the number of citations in year X to papers published in year X-1 plus year X-2 by the total number of papers published in years X-1 plus X-2
A dozen Brazilian scientists who had published articles in international journals covered in the Web of Science (WoS) [8] during the period from 1994 to 2003 were invited to submit an article to the March 2008 issue of Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (AABC), a prestigious Brazilian scientific journal

Summary

Introduction

There is a general worldwide perception that authors of scientific papers from developing countries submit articles to national scientific journals usually as a second choice, especially when their area of investigation is at the cutting edge of science. A dozen Brazilian scientists who had published articles in international journals covered in the Web of Science (WoS) [8] during the period from 1994 to 2003 were invited to submit an article to the March 2008 issue of Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (AABC), a prestigious Brazilian scientific journal. The aim was to determine if these authors, who usually publish in high IF international journals, would carry their reputation with them to the AABC, as indicated by the citations received from WoS journals.

Results

Conclusion