Over the last few days I’ve been updating some of the slides I use in my ‘Scientific publishing and communicating chemistry’ talk. One of the slides looks at five general-chemistry journals and pulls some quotes from their websites that they use to describe/sell themselves. At this point, I should disclose/remind you, that I am the editor of one of these journals (the one with ‘Nature‘ at the start of its name). My slide doesn’t reveal which quotes belong to which journal and I have a bit of fun with the audience as they try to guess. I’ve pulled a few more quotes off the websites for the purposes of this post (in addition to the ones on my slide) and so — without cheating by looking them up — can you work out which quotes belong to which of the following journals?

[Images taken from the websites of the respective publishers and copyright NPG, Wiley, ACS, RSC, respectively]

1. “…the world’s preeminent journal in all of chemistry and interfacing areas of science.”

2. “Journal Name, with its excellent Impact Factor of XXXX, is maintaining its leading position among the general chemistry journals.”

3. “At the forefront of the most exciting developments in the chemical sciences, helping to define the important areas by publishing the most significant cutting-edge research.”

4. “Journal Name is . . . dedicated to publishing high-quality papers that describe the most significant and cutting-edge research in all areas of chemistry.”

5. “It is one of the prime chemistry journals in the world, with an Impact Factor higher than those of comparable journals.”

6. “Publishing your research in Journal Name means your article will have excellent visibility and will be read and cited quickly by your colleagues.”

7. “The most cited journal in chemistry…”

8. “The leading journal for the publication of communications on important developments in the chemical sciences”

9. “This [Impact Factor] places Journal Name first among all primary research journals in chemistry”

10. “Journal Name is renowned as the fastest publisher of articles providing information on new avenues of research, drawn from all the world’s major areas of chemical research.”

11. “It appears weekly in a highly optimized, reader-friendly format; new articles appear online almost every day.”

12. “In a break with tradition, the journal gives authors the freedom and flexibility to publish more extensive accounts of their novel research without page restrictions.”

I’ll update the post in a few days with some answers and observations. In the meantime, have fun! (I might post some of my other slides in due course too…).

UPDATE 20 June: Here are the answers (sources of quotes are linked)…

Nature Chemistry: #4 and #9
JACS: #1 and #7
Angewandte Chemie: #2, #5 and #11
Chem Sci: #3, #6 and #12
Chem Commun: #8 and #10

How did you do?

I was planning on making some witty/disparaging/snide remarks specifically about some of the statements above, but have thought better of it. Nevertheless, some of the claims range from silly to highly subjective matters of opinion — and whether a journal is ‘prime’, ‘leading’, or ‘preeminent’ is probably something that the community should decide, not the journal itself. But that’s marketing for you.