According to China Education Online, SSCI is an international core periodical, which mainly includes periodicals and conference papers in the social science field, and is considered as a high-level periodical in this field. CN is a core periodical in China, mainly including domestic periodicals and conference papers, and its awareness is relatively low. Therefore, SSCI three-zone papers are not periodicals or papers recognized by CN, and their recognition and evaluation criteria are different.

SSCI paper belongs to one of SSCI divisions, and its recognition and status are relatively high in the world. In SSCI area, the first area is the highest-level periodical, followed by the second area, followed by the third and fourth area.