IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v102y2015i2d10.1007_s11192-014-1456-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does a paper being featured on the cover of a journal guarantee more attention and greater impact?

Author

Listed:
  • Xianwen Wang

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Chen Liu

    (Dalian University of Technology)

  • Wenli Mao

    (Dalian University of Technology)

Abstract

Paper featured on the cover of a journal has more visibility in an issue compared with other ordinary articles for both printed and electronic journal. Does this kind of visibility guarantee more attention and greater impact of its associated content than the non-cover papers? In this research, usage and citation data of 60 issues of PLOS Biology from 2006 to 2010 are analyzed to compare the attention and scholarly impact between cover and non-cover paper. Our empirical study confirms that, in most cases, the group difference between cover and non-cover paper is not significant for attention or impact. Cover paper is not the best one, nor at the upper level in one issue considering the attention or the citation impact. Having a paper featured on the cover of a journal may be a source of pride to researchers, many institutions and researchers would even release news about it. However, a paper being featured on the cover of a journal doesn’t guarantee more attention and greater impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Xianwen Wang & Chen Liu & Wenli Mao, 2015. "Does a paper being featured on the cover of a journal guarantee more attention and greater impact?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1815-1821, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:102:y:2015:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1456-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1456-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-014-1456-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-014-1456-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xianwen Wang & Wenli Mao & Shenmeng Xu & Chunbo Zhang, 2014. "Usage history of scientific literature: Nature metrics and metrics of Nature publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1923-1933, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Battiston, Pietro & Sacco, Pier Luigi & Stanca, Luca, 2022. "Cover effects on citations uncovered: Evidence from Nature," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jielan Ding & Per Ahlgren & Liying Yang & Ting Yue, 2018. "Disciplinary structures in Nature, Science and PNAS: journal and country levels," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1817-1852, September.
    2. Chunli Wei & Jingyi Zhao & Jue Ni & Jiang Li, 2023. "What does open peer review bring to scientific articles? Evidence from PLoS journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2763-2776, May.
    3. Wang, Xianwen & Wang, Zhi & Mao, Wenli & Liu, Chen, 2014. "How far does scientific community look back?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 562-568.
    4. Jianhua Hou & Hao Li & Yang Zhang, 2023. "Altmetrics-based sleeping beauties: necessity or just a supplement?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(10), pages 5477-5506, October.
    5. Star X. Zhao & Wen Lou & Alice M. Tan & Shuang Yu, 2018. "Do funded papers attract more usage?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 153-168, April.
    6. Houcemeddine Turki & Mohamed Ali Hadj Taieb & Mohamed Ben Aouicha & Ajith Abraham, 2020. "Nature or Science: what Google Trends says," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1367-1385, August.
    7. Zhiqi Wang & Wolfgang Glänzel & Yue Chen, 2020. "The impact of preprints in Library and Information Science: an analysis of citations, usage and social attention indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 1403-1423, November.
    8. Bikun Chen, 2018. "Usage pattern comparison of the same scholarly articles between Web of Science (WoS) and Springer," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(1), pages 519-537, April.
    9. Xianwen Wang & Zhichao Fang & Xinhui Guo, 2016. "Tracking the digital footprints to scholarly articles from social media," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1365-1376, November.
    10. Yufeng Duan & Zequan Xiong, 2017. "Download patterns of journal papers and their influencing factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1761-1775, September.
    11. Thelwall, Mike & Nevill, Tamara, 2018. "Could scientists use Altmetric.com scores to predict longer term citation counts?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 237-248.
    12. Wencan Tian & Yongzhen Wang & Zhigang Hu & Ruonan Cai & Guangyao Zhang & Xianwen Wang, 2024. "Does Granger causality exist between article usage and publication counts? A topic-level time-series evidence from IEEE Xplore," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(6), pages 3285-3302, June.
    13. Zhichao Fang & Rodrigo Costas, 2020. "Studying the accumulation velocity of altmetric data tracked by Altmetric.com," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 1077-1101, May.
    14. Xianwen Wang & Chen Liu & Wenli Mao & Zhichao Fang, 2015. "The open access advantage considering citation, article usage and social media attention," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(2), pages 555-564, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:102:y:2015:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1456-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.