Necessity of Framing Virtuous Journal Policies for Attaining High Impact Citations

In the era of modern science and technology research has been given great significance. This will be only possible in light of accurate results extracted from good quality published researches in reputed journals. To ensure quality standard maintenance of medical journals, recommended international guidelines by International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) must be followed. All these will be emphasize various steps for publications i.e. pre submission phase, submission phase, publication proceedings and post publication phase. The ICMJE and WAME is comprised of a group of medical journal editors and the legislatures of associated organizations. They focus to refine the recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals.1,2 While aim of COPE is to focus on publication ensuring maintenance of all ethical rights of subjects and patients especially in line with Helsinki declaration.3-5 Following and strict adherence to all these will be helpful to achieve good Global ranking of a journal. This will be done by SC Imago Journal Rank (SJR) which is an internationally recognized standard for recognizing the quartile (Q) of a journal. All the mile stones for this ranking and quartile demarcation, includes the overall number of published manuscripts, total number of citations, and average citations per week. Regarding quartiles, they helps in journal’s ranking for impact factor or impact index. Q1 comprises of upper 25% of journals in the gradient, Q2 involves journals in next 25 to 50% group, Q3 includes journals between 50 to 75% groups. While Q4 is occupied by group of journals between 75 to 100%. The esteemed journals of specific discipline are usually the ones which can occupy first quartile, Q1.6 In light of ICMJE, WAME and COPE guidelines, following can be the plan to uplift a medical journal in view to make it a Q1 journal;1-3 There must be clarity for each an ever policy to run a medical journal in successful way. Highlighted amongst those policies includes finalization of journal’s name reflecting the content to be published. Then comes establishment of editorial board i.e. editor in chief, associate editors, assistant editors, advisory board, statistician, English language expert and team for plagiarism and software handling. The editors should be highly reputed individuals who are capable of making decisions regarding the acceptance or rejection of an article. He should have the ability to work as a team, because he is the one to regular involve author’s reviewers and publishers in the process of printing the journal.