Impact factor is one of the most discussed and most misunderstood metrics in academic publishing. After years of watching researchers make journal selection decisions based almost entirely on impact factor, I want to offer a more nuanced and practically useful perspective.
The impact factor of a journal is calculated as the average number of citations received per article published in that journal over the previous two years. A journal with an impact factor of 10 means that, on average, articles published in that journal are cited 10 times in the two years following publication. Higher impact factor journals generally reach larger, more active research communities and therefore carry more prestige in most academic evaluation systems.
However, impact factor alone is a poor basis for submission strategy for several important reasons.
Impact factor is discipline-dependent. A journal with an impact factor of 3 in humanities is exceptional. A journal with an impact factor of 3 in molecular biology is considered low. Comparing impact factors across fields without understanding this context leads to misleading conclusions about journal quality.
A journal's impact factor tells you nothing about your paper's acceptance probability. A journal with an impact factor of 40 and a 95 percent rejection rate will desk reject most submissions immediately. A journal with an impact factor of 4 and an acceptance rate of 30 percent may provide far more realistic path to publication for the same piece of research. Publication in a Q1 journal with an impact factor of 4 is infinitely more valuable than a desk rejection from a journal with an impact factor of 20.
Quartile ranking within your subject category is more strategically useful than raw impact factor. A journal that ranks in Q1 for your specific subject area, even with a modest impact factor, will satisfy most institutional publication requirements and still place your work in front of the right audience.
The most effective approach is to use impact factor as one signal among several, alongside quartile ranking, acceptance rate, subject scope match, review timeline, and the citation environment of the journal. At Eldenhall Research, journal selection considers all of these variables together rather than optimising for any single metric.