Use the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database to find the impact factors and other data for evaluating over 5,700 leading international science journals and over 1,700 social science journals.

What is an Impact Factor? "The journal impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The impact factor is calculated by dividing the number of citations in the current year to articles published in the two previous years by the total number of articles published in the two previous years." -- from Journal Citation Reports.

The example screens below describe how to search Journal Citation Reports for Impact Factors:

Access Journal Citation Reports from the Library's Databases page. It is listed under the category Impact Factors and Cited Reference Searching.

Select the edition (Science or Social Sciences) and year.

Then select how you would like to view journal data:

• View a group of journals by subject, publisher or country
• Search for one specific journal,
• Or, view all journals.

Click Submit.

If you selected subject category, choose a subject from the list on the next screen.

Then, select how you would like to sort the list of journals.

Click Submit.

The Journal Summary List, which includes the impact factors for each journal, will display. The yellow column indicates how the results are currently being sorted.

Use the Sorted by menu to sort the results by various criteria including Journal Title, Impact Factor, and Immediacy Index.

Click on the
Journal Title to see
more details.

Click Trends to see a graph of this journal’s impact factors for the last 5 years.

Cited Journal Data: Lists the publications that most frequently cite this journal.

Citing Journal Data: Lists the publications that are most frequently cited by this journal.

• Journal Citation Reports
• To find out more about evaluating journals, you may wish to read the article entitled Using the JCR Wisely, located in the JCR’s Help files.

Librarians are available to support your research. For help with a search, or to schedule individual assistance, please call (212) 241-7204 or send an email to Ask a Librarian.