1, concentration. Refers to the core journals with a small number of high-quality papers in a certain subject. 1934, British philologist Bradford revealed the law of document accumulation and dispersion, which laid the foundation for the research of core journals. Therefore, centralization is the most basic feature of core journals.
2. representativeness. Papers in a group of core journals of a certain discipline represent the latest level and development direction of the discipline. This feature is determined by the centralization of core journals. Because a number of core journals concentrate most of the high-quality papers of a certain discipline, they naturally represent the research level and development direction of the discipline, and every progress in discipline research is basically reflected in the papers published in these core journals first. By tracking the papers in these journals, we can stand at the forefront of the discipline and keep up with the pace of discipline development.
3. disciplinary action. It means that the core journals are always associated with a certain discipline, and the core journals of a certain discipline are the core journals about the literature of that discipline. If it is placed in another subject journal, it is generally no longer a core journal. However, due to the rapid development of science and technology, the intersection and infiltration between disciplines are more complicated, so in some cases, a few journals may be the core journals of multiple disciplines, and it is normal for the core journals of a discipline to include some journals of related disciplines.
4. authority It means that the determination of core journals needs to be recognized. In the process of determining core journals, in addition to applying bibliometrics principles for screening, it is also necessary to absorb the opinions of representative subject experts to make up for the deviation caused by lack of subject knowledge. Its research methods must be recognized by subject experts, and its research results must be appraised by subject experts. Therefore, the authority of research institutions and the recognition of research methods of core journals are very important, otherwise the application results of core journals will not be recognized and it will be difficult to play their due role.
5. Hierarchy. Refers to the core journals are also divided into different levels, some are the most important authoritative journals in this discipline, and some are important journals with slightly lower levels. Core journals are revised regularly. For example, since the first edition of 1992 was published in Peking University, the abstracts of Chinese core journals have been revised every four years, and the CSSCI source journals published in NTU have been revised once a year. The authoritative periodicals at the forefront of core periodicals generally maintain the status of core periodicals and have continuity. However, important journals with a slightly lower level sometimes enter the core journals, and sometimes they are eliminated from the core ranks, which is unstable.
6. Theory of Relativity. Refers to core journals, which is relative to non-core journals, but not absolute. There are many methods to determine the core journals, but each method has its limitations. Although people generally combine various methods to learn from each other's strengths, they can't be very accurate. At the same time, the core area is artificially defined, and there is no obvious objective boundary between the core area and the non-core area. Therefore, core journals and non-core journals have only relative significance, but not absolute significance.
7. Dynamic. Refers to the core journal is a dynamic concept, not fixed. What is reflected here is not only the change of the total number of core journals, but also some qualitative changes. Science and technology are changing with each passing day, and scientific journals that record and reflect the achievements of scientific activities are also constantly developing and changing.
On the one hand, this development and change is manifested in the publication, suspension, renaming, merger, cataloging and changing the publishing frequency of periodicals; On the other hand, there are changes in the quality and level of published periodicals, including changes in the ranking order of the original core periodicals and changes in the publishing types of core periodicals, that is, some core periodicals lost in the new selection because of the decline in the quality of running periodicals, and some general periodicals entered the ranks of core periodicals because of the improvement in the quality of running periodicals.