High-impact journals are those considered to be highly influential in their respective fields. The impact factor of journal provides quantitative assessment tool for grading, evaluating, sorting and comparing journals of similar kind. It reflects the average number of citations to recent articles published in science and social science journals in a particular year or period, and is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field. It is first devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information. The impact factor of a journal is evaluated by dividing the number of current year citations to the source items published in that journal during the previous two years. The impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, the founder of the Institute for Scientific Information Pharmacoepidemiology Impact factors are calculated yearly starting from 2013 for those journals that are indexed in the Journal Citation Reports. A journal can adopt editorial policies to increase its impact factor. For example, journals may publish a larger percentage of review articles which generally are cited more than research reports.
