TL;DR

• Impact factor and CiteScore both measure journal influence, not article quality.

• Impact factor covers two years of citations; CiteScore covers four years.

• CiteScore includes more journal types and is freely searchable online.

• Neither metric should be your only reason to choose a journal.

• Fit, scope, and peer review process matter more than any single number.

You have finished your research. You have a draft. Now you need to find a journal to submit it to, and suddenly you are staring at two numbers that nobody explained to you: an impact factor and a CiteScore. They are different. They do not always agree. And most guides assume you already know what they mean.

This post breaks both metrics down clearly. It explains how each one is calculated, where each one falls short, and how to use them together when you are deciding where to submit your work. Understanding impact factor vs CiteScore is not just useful background knowledge. It is a practical skill that shapes every submission decision you make.

Start with what both metrics are actually measuring, because the answer is less obvious than it looks.

What Is Impact Factor vs CiteScore, and How Are They Different?

Impact factor measures how often articles from a journal were cited in a single year, divided by how many citable articles that journal published in the previous two years. CiteScore measures the same basic idea, but uses four years of data instead of two, and counts a broader set of document types. Both numbers describe a journal's average citation rate, not the quality of any individual paper.

Impact factor is published annually by Clarivate in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). It has been the dominant metric in academic publishing since Eugene Garfield introduced it in the 1960s. The formula looks simple: take the number of times a journal's articles were cited in a given year, then divide by the number of articles that journal published in the two years before that. The result is a single number. A journal with an impact factor of 5.0 means its articles were cited an average of five times each within that two-year window.

CiteScore is published by Elsevier through its Scopus database. Elsevier introduced it in 2016 as a more transparent alternative. The calculation uses four years of data instead of two, and it counts all documents in the denominator, including editorials and letters, not just research articles. That broader base tends to produce lower numbers than impact factor for the same journal. A journal might carry an impact factor of 4.2 and a CiteScore of 6.8 at the same time. Both are technically correct. They are just measuring slightly different windows of the same activity.

If you are trying to understand the academic publishing process more broadly before diving into metrics, the Publication Compass guide to academic publishing for students is a useful place to build that foundation first.

Why Impact Factor Gets Criticised So Often

Impact factor is criticised primarily because it is easy to game and because it varies enormously between fields. A two-year citation window is too short for disciplines like mathematics or geology, where papers are cited over decades. Review articles inflate a journal's number because they accumulate citations faster than original research. And the metric says nothing about whether those citations were positive, negative, or corrective.

The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, known as DORA, was signed in 2012 by hundreds of scientific organisations and thousands of researchers. DORA specifically calls on institutions to stop using journal impact factor as a proxy for the quality of individual research articles. Major funders including Wellcome Trust and the UK Research and Innovation body have endorsed this position. The criticism is not fringe opinion. It is mainstream within the scientific community.

There is also an access problem. The full Journal Citation Reports database sits behind a paywall. Many students and early-career researchers cannot look up impact factors without institutional access. This matters because you cannot evaluate a journal you cannot see the data for.

One more structural issue: impact factor only covers journals indexed in the Web of Science. That excludes a significant portion of legitimate peer-reviewed journals, particularly in social sciences, humanities, and emerging fields. If a journal is not in Web of Science, it simply has no impact factor, even if it publishes strong, well-cited work.

Where CiteScore Has the Advantage

CiteScore covers a larger pool of journals than impact factor because Scopus indexes more titles than Web of Science. It is also freely accessible. Anyone can search CiteScore values on the Scopus journal comparison tool without a subscription. For students who do not have full institutional database access, this is a meaningful practical difference.

The four-year window is more forgiving for fields where citation cycles are slower. A paper in environmental science or educational research might take three years to accumulate citations. CiteScore captures that more accurately than a two-year window does. The transparency of the formula is also a genuine advantage. Elsevier publishes exactly how CiteScore is calculated, which means you can verify the number yourself rather than trusting a black-box output.

That said, CiteScore has its own weaknesses. Because it includes all document types in the denominator, journals that publish many short pieces, like news summaries or conference abstracts, can end up with lower CiteScores than their citation volume would otherwise suggest. Elsevier also controls both the metric and the database it draws from, which raises questions about conflicts of interest that several researchers have noted in the literature.

If you are trying to identify the right journals for your specific field, understanding what an impact factor really means for student researchers gives you the context to use both metrics more accurately.

How to Use Both Metrics When Choosing a Journal

Use impact factor and CiteScore as filters, not final answers. Neither number tells you whether your paper belongs in a journal. They tell you roughly how much that journal is read and cited within its field. Here is a practical way to approach the decision.

1. Start with scope, not score. Read the journal's aims and scope statement. If your research topic is not explicitly within their remit, a high impact factor will not save your submission from desk rejection.

2. Check the field-normalised context. An impact factor of 1.5 is low in biomedical research but competitive in education or library science. Compare journals within the same subject category, not across fields.

3. Look at both metrics together. If a journal has a high impact factor but no CiteScore, it may not be indexed in Scopus, which limits how discoverable your published work will be. If it has a CiteScore but no impact factor, it may be newer or more specialised, which is not necessarily a problem.

4. Verify the journal is peer reviewed. The Directory of Open Access Journals, known as DOAJ, and the Committee on Publication Ethics, known as COPE, both maintain lists of journals that meet minimum ethical standards. Cross-check any journal you are seriously considering.

5. Read recent articles the journal has published. This tells you more than any metric. If the published papers are methodologically similar to yours and reach a similar audience, that is a stronger signal than any number.

If you are at the stage of matching your research to specific journals and want structured support in doing that, joining the Publication Compass waitlist gives you early access to a platform built specifically for that process.

Real Journals Where This Decision Plays Out

To make this concrete, consider three journals that student researchers in science and social science frequently encounter when exploring where to publish.

PLOS ONE is a multidisciplinary open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science. Its impact factor sits around 3.7 as of recent JCR reports, while its CiteScore is higher due to its large publication volume and four-year citation window. It is indexed in both Web of Science and Scopus. Its peer review model focuses on scientific soundness rather than perceived importance, which makes it a realistic target for student researchers with solid methodology.

Frontiers in Psychology carries a CiteScore that reflects its high volume of published articles and broad citation base. It is indexed in Scopus and PubMed. Its impact factor is lower than some specialist psychology journals, partly because it publishes across many psychology subfields. If your research is in behavioural science or cognitive psychology, the field-normalised comparison matters more than the raw number.

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, published by Springer, has a well-established impact factor in the developmental psychology space and is indexed in both major databases. For student researchers studying peer behaviour, academic motivation, or adolescent development, this journal's scope is specific enough that a strong paper has a genuine path to consideration.

None of these examples are endorsements. They are illustrations of how the same impact factor vs CiteScore comparison looks different depending on the field and the journal's publishing model. Publication Compass helps researchers identify journals like these that match their specific topic, not just their ambition for a high metric.

FAQ

Is a higher impact factor always better for my submission?

No. A higher impact factor means a journal is more cited on average, but it also usually means more competition and a narrower acceptance rate. Submitting to a journal where your topic fits the scope precisely is more important than chasing the highest number in your field. Fit determines whether editors read past the abstract.

Can I find CiteScore for free without a university login?

Yes. Elsevier provides free access to CiteScore data through the Scopus Sources tool at scopus.com. You can search by journal name or ISSN and view the CiteScore, subject area, and publisher without logging in. This makes CiteScore more accessible than impact factor for researchers without institutional database subscriptions.

Do impact factor and CiteScore ever contradict each other?

They frequently produce different rankings for the same set of journals. This happens because they use different time windows, different document types in the denominator, and draw from different databases. A journal ranked highly by one metric may rank lower by the other. Using both together gives a more complete picture than relying on either alone.

Does publishing in a high-impact journal make my paper more credible?

Not automatically. Journal prestige does not guarantee that a paper's findings are correct or reproducible. Peer review quality varies across journals regardless of their metric scores. Your paper's credibility comes from its methodology, transparency, and how well it holds up to scrutiny, not from the journal's impact factor.

Should student researchers avoid journals with no impact factor?

No. Many legitimate, peer-reviewed journals are not indexed in Web of Science and therefore carry no impact factor. Check whether the journal is listed in DOAJ or indexed in Scopus instead. A journal without an impact factor is not automatically predatory or low quality. Verify its peer review process and editorial board independently.

Conclusion

Impact factor and CiteScore are tools. Like any tool, they are useful when applied to the right task and misleading when applied to the wrong one. Neither metric tells you whether your paper is ready to submit. Neither tells you whether a journal's readers are the right audience for your work. What they tell you is roughly how much a journal is cited within its field, across different time windows and document sets. Use that information as one input among several, not as a final verdict.

The most important step is still reading the journal's scope, checking its peer review standards, and looking at what it has actually published recently. For more on navigating the full submission process, the Publication Compass blog covers the steps from draft to decision in plain language.