Editor's View

摘要

Authors and editors are increasingly preoccupied with thenimpact factor ofmedical and scientific journals, driven by thenResearch Assessment Exercise and other measurements ofnresearch quality. The impact factor is the number of citationsnin any given year to a journal’s papers published in the previousn2 years, divided by the total number of citable articlesnover that 2-year period. I am therefore delighted that thenimpact factor for Age and Ageing has increased from 1,910 inn2007 to 3,052 in 2008. This is not simply due to an increasednnumber of journals leading to an overall increase of citations,nas the ranking of Age and Ageing among Geriatric Medicinenand Gerontology journals has increased from 18th out ofn31 in 2007 to 13th out of 36 in 2008. This is great tributento the hard work of the editorial team and referees, whonreview potentially appropriate manuscripts, make commentsnto the authors on ways to improve their papers and providenadvice on suitability for publication. Many important papersnof major interest to Geriatric Medicine are currently submittednto other journals with a high impact factor. I hope that thenincrease in impact factor will encourage authors to considernsubmitting their most important work to Age and Ageing.