Ranking Info

Sociology Journals: Ranking Information Using Citations

Michael Allen has been ranking journals of sociology for 15 years. His formulas include an objective measure he calls "core influence," defined this way:

Core influence equals the number of times articles from a journal are cited in a given year in one of the three major journals of general interest in the field of sociology (American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and Social Forces) divided by the number of articles published in the journal in that same year.  

In his findings Allen states as an example, "this table shows that an article published in Administrative Science Quarterly, which has a core influence score of 4.23 can expect to be cited 2.45 times in American Journal of Sociology, 1.20 times in American Sociological Review, and .59 times in Social Forces."

The first set of rankings reflects the core influence scores calculated for the three-year period 1999-2001 for the top 10 peer review journals from a field of 90 with the highest average scores.

Core influence scores assume that:

1. the number of articles published each year by a journal remains fairly constant

2. the number of citations each year remains fairly constant and

3. the journals have been in existence at least as long as an article is likely to be cited (10 years)

Allen recommends "core influence" scores in order to exclude any bias effected by citations from journals outside the core discipline of sociology.