Talk:Canadian Medical Association Journal

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[edit] Top five journals

Is the Canadian Medical Association Journal really in the top five journal category? Its impact factor is 5.941, whereas the impact factor of Annals of Internal Medicine is 13.114. I would imagine that the Annals would be in the top 5, not CMAJ! Andrew73 21:40, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this involves web statistics rather than impact factor. The Annals is not free (alas, because I like it). JFW | T@lk 00:06, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Good point about the web statistics, though I think the impact factor is probably a better reflection of the journal ranking. I'll take this up with Nephron. Andrew73 00:32, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The article says:

"[The CMAJ] is considered to be one of the top five general medical journals..." [emphasis added]

See the about CMAJ link. Annals of Internal Medicine isn't a general medical journal. It is a journal of internal medicine. Nephron 01:02, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Interestingly, if you go to the ISI Web of Knowledge, Journal Citation Reports, where the impact factors are calculated and the journals are ranked, the category is "medicine, general & internal," so general medical and internal medicine journals are actually lumped together! Andrew73 12:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Annals is internal medicine- which is the main body of general medicine. You guys are also all forgetting Nature Medicine (the general medicine sister journal of Nature), which has a much high impact factor than BMJ or JAMA. Thus, we should not say CMAJ is in the top 5. 71.243.38.143

Nature Medicine is a basic sciences journal (i.e. it is about "tomorrow's medicine").[1] Unlike the other journals mentioned above (BMJ, JAMA etc.), it is not a journal directed at clinicans (i.e. physicians that manage patients) for clinical management. Nephron  T|C 06:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Top six

The impact factor for CMAJ is 7.402, putting it behind the Archives of Internal Medicine at 8.016, which is ranked number 5. I'm pulling this information from a recent BMJ article that discusses impact factor, [2]. I've made this change in the main article. Andrew73 20:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but that BMJ article was about how people are taking Science Citation Index impact factors too seriously :) Are you comfortable with taking them out to 3 decimal places?

I've always heard of NEJM, JAMA, BMJ and Lancet were the "big four", and either Annals of Internal Medicine or CMAJ in fifth place. And that was before Hoey was fired. They may not be meeting that standard any more, sadly. I don't feel too strongly about this one way or the other, but I would lean towards a citation, rather than "It is considered". I was taught never to use passive voice. Nbauman 23:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW, more important than citation analysis, I'd like to mention some good articles the CMAJ has published. Nbauman 23:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)