There are more than 8,000 periodicals in China, which are quite different in disciplines, organizers, competent departments, quality and services. Although the national administrative department has never classified the current periodicals from the administrative point of view, the concept of periodical classification has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Moreover, it is impossible and unrealistic for more than 8,000 journals to have no level difference. In fact, periodicals have always been graded, which is almost the knowledge of relevant government agencies, periodical organizers and authors, but the determination of periodical grades is complicated, and there is no unified national standard and grading catalogue. The most traditional classification of periodicals is based on the competent department of periodicals. 199 1 year, the Administrative Measures for Sci-tech Journals jointly issued by the State Science and Technology Commission and the Press and Publication Administration divided the periodicals into national and local periodicals, and these two classifications gradually evolved into national, provincial and municipal periodicals. In 1970s, the theory of core journals was introduced into China, and by 1990s, core journals had been widely known in academic circles. At the same time, a variety of large-scale databases related to periodical evaluation began to be established, from which a variety of periodical rankings were obtained. Many scientific research institutions in colleges and universities also study and formulate them as second-hand core journals (or key journals, etc.). ), the relevant government departments organized various periodical rating. The above-mentioned periodical grading evaluation, ranking list and various periodical lists or awards are all graded periodicals in essence. It can be seen that the concept of periodical classification has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts (for example, Nature in Britain and Science in the United States are recognized as first-class academic journals all over the world, and the scientific research award of Zhejiang University Medical College stipulates that it costs 654.38+10,000 yuan to publish academic papers in Science and Nature), and the research and practice of periodical classification is becoming more and more abundant and diversified.

1, classification of periodical authorities.

This is the most traditional periodical grading method, and it is also the main method still in use at present. According to this classification method, periodicals are divided into national, provincial and ministerial level, and prefecture-level periodicals. Academic journals sponsored by scientific research institutes, universities and national first-class societies representing the national scientific research level are generally regarded as national journals, as well as provincial and ministerial journals, prefecture-level journals and so on.

The characteristics of this classification are simple and easy to confirm; According to the classification of birth, as long as the competent department does not change the announcement, it will enjoy the lifelong level; As long as the competent department is the first level, all kinds of periodicals (academic periodicals, news reports, work guidance, knowledge popularization periodicals) belong to the first level and cannot be distinguished. Therefore, this classification method is only suitable for periodicals at a certain level and in a certain region (such as strict academic periodicals), and it is not suitable for general use in a wide range, otherwise there will be funny phenomena of "China Social Sciences" (sponsored by China Academy of Social Sciences) and "China Music Education" (sponsored by the Ministry of Education).

2, according to whether the journal is published.

According to this standard, periodicals are divided into public periodicals and internal periodicals. Generally speaking, under the same level of organizers, public journals are higher than internal journals (except for confidentiality requirements or non-academic factors). Like the first classification, this classification is only reasonable if it is carried out at a certain level or area.

3. Grading by periodical quality.

Grading by quality is a kind of grading with the most academic value, which is mainly manifested in winning prizes or being selected into a certain catalogue. After the introduction of core journal theory into China, information science finally has a more scientific and reasonable new method to replace the traditional hierarchical classification. 1988 Lanzhou university follows the method of "journal citation report" in Science Citation Index, selects 10 natural science journals with the highest academic level published in China as the basis, compiles a citation index card every year, distributes it and prints it into a book, and selects 104 from them. 1990 According to the main foreign retrieval tools, the Document Information Center of China Academy of Sciences listed10 China sci-tech periodicals and 104 periodicals proposed by Lanzhou University, and also included journals of universities in China (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan) listed in major projects announced by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and 286 sci-tech core periodicals were proposed by experts. 199 1 year, the research group of "Statistics and Analysis of Scientific Papers in China" of China Institute of Science and Technology Information re-selected 1230 as the statistical source of China's "Academic List". The classification of these influential periodicals is limited to natural science, which shows that on the one hand, the classification of natural science periodicals is ahead of social science in theory and practice, on the other hand, the quality classification of periodicals, which began in the late 1980s, still lacks comprehensiveness and systematicness of disciplines.