Dear Prof. Raspopov,

Welcome to issue 6 of Research Trends. This issue focuses on various aspects of the journal, one of the principal means of scholarly communication. We examine the establishment of English as the language of science after the Second World War and how the Netherlands has become a center of English-language journal publishing. At the same time, we ask scholars who have frequently cited a non-English paper why they did so.

We also look at journal analysis. Thorough journal analysis, carried out over time, can provide useful information about the performance and position of a journal relative to other journals in the same field. There is a danger, however, that the metrics produced can be used incorrectly. Professor David Colquhoun addresses the pitfalls of metrics misuse.

We welcome your feedback on any of the topics covered.

To download a PDF of this issue, please click here.

Kind regards,

The Research Trends Editorial Board

The value of bibliometric measures
Journal analysis
What can journal analysis tell us? Research Trends takes a closer look at a collection of French Medical journals and a collection of physics journals.

Research trends
Journal publication: why the Netherlands is so prolific
The share of world articles is dominated by those countries with the most researchers. However, the geographical distribution of the journals' publication country does not follow the same pattern. The Netherlands, which is the third largest journal publisher, is a notable case in point. Why is this?

Country trends
English as the international language of science
Since the end of the Second World War, English has become the established language of scholarly communication, but not without controversy. We examine some of the reasons and the consequences for local-language publishing.

Expert opinion
The misuse of metrics can harm science
When Eugene Garfield devised the Impact Factor in 1955 to help select journals for the Science Citation Index, he had no idea that 'impact' would become so controversial. Research Trends talks to Professor David Colquhoun about the subject.

Why did you cite...?
In this section, we ask authors why they cited a particular article. This issue we focus on a pioneering non-English paper and ask those who have cited it frequently why they did so.