Do Not Use I.F. for Scientific Value Estimation

Abstract

A toy model for the distribution of the impact factor (IF) of a journal is proposed. The model demonstrates the presence of a heavy tail for the IF distribution, which occurs due to some random non- scientific circumstances.

Therefore, the use of IF as an indicator of the quality of scientific papers seems to be inadequate.

Keywords

• citation distribution
• impact factor distribution
• essential randomness
• Sibuya distribution