[caphyboy]

       As a graduate, we may have got or searched many papers in hands.But how can we know whether a paper is valuable enough?That is  to what a degree for a paper (how many times a paper is cited?) it shows that the paper is very valuable enough?

       Thanks!

[Mitch]

http://scholar.google.com , http://isiknowledge.com

[caphyboy]

     What I mean is whether  there is a standard (say how many times  a paper is cited to date) for a paper that can prove the paper is very valuable.
    Thanks!

[Mitch]

Yes, the above links will tell you the amount of times a paper has been cited.

[kiwi]

do you mean whether there is a standard bar for the number of citations for a valuable paper? there isn't, because the number of citations is linked to the number of groups working in the area (and the number of times the authors cite their own work). so good papers in niche areas will have less citations than average papers in very popular areas.

[Custos]

Citations are a poor, or at least very rough, measure of value for publications. There's the "niche" versus "popular" issue mentioned by kiwi, but also citation numbers need to be normalised for average reference numbers per paper. For example, the average biochemistry paper is cited twice as many times as the average chemistry paper (I guess biochemistry papers have twice as many references on average). In addition, reviews tend to be highly cited because they are easier to cite than a list of primary reports - although arguably the original literature is more valuable than a review.

Also a poor paper may be cited many times by people pointing out errors (Pons and Fleischman anyone?)

[caphyboy]

      First, thanks every one here for the discussion.
     
      I have known that the value of a paper cannot only evaluated by it’s cited time, because a poor may be cited many times by people pointing out errors(just as what Custos has pointed).

      But now, actually, it is said that the cited time of a paper is one of the important factors reflecting the value of the paper. And a bad paper usually would be less cited. So I want to know normally to what a degree for a paper ---especially an organic chemistry paper (how many times a paper is cited?) it shows that the paper is valuable enough?

     Thanks!

[alphahydroxy]

I think a very important factor in determining the value of an organic chemistry paper, is just which journal it appears in. I mean, something published in say JOC or JACS or Angewandte is generally going to be more reliable than something published in The Australian Journal of Orgnaic Chemistry. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that excellent research is not published in anything other than the 4 or 5 most popular journals, but I find that things which are published in these "high impact" journals is often more interesting, more groundbreaking and more reproducible than those published in the lesser known journals.

just my $0.02

[caphyboy]

     Thanks every one here!

     

[movies]

I agree that the "high impact" journals tend to have the more innovative and important advances, but I definitely disagree with respect to the reproducibility issue.  The shortcoming of some of the journals is that they do not require explicit experimental details to be published along with the paper, and this is a problem.  However, I wouldn't hesitate to try a procedure from a second tier journal.

[Custos]

I think a very important factor in determining the value of an organic chemistry paper, is just which journal it appears in. I mean, something published in say JOC or JACS or Angewandte is generally going to be more reliable than something published in The Australian Journal of Orgnaic Chemistry. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that excellent research is not published in anything other than the 4 or 5 most popular journals, but I find that things which are published in these "high impact" journals is often more interesting, more groundbreaking and more reproducible than those published in the lesser known journals.

In defence of Aust. J. Chem., they have never published anything from J. J. La Clair, unlike Angewandte. 

Seriously though, I take your point - the quality of a journal is an important indication of the quality of the publication. However, you shouldn't confuse popularity with quality. The Australian Journal of Chemistry (there is no Aust. J. Organic Chem) may not be popular because it is the society journal of a small country, but its refereeing process and attention to supplementary material (spectra, microanalyses, and other evidence of reproducibility) is very high (I'm an Aussie in case you didn't guess!). Tetrahedron Letters is a very popular journal, but in my experience it is littered with unreproducible work with scant experimental detail and no evidence.

Angewandte has a high impact factor (citation rate) because it publishes a lot of reviews. But ultimately the quality of the primary publications depends on the quality of the refereeing and editorial oversight. How did the nonsense about hexacyclinol total synthesis ever get published?

[alphahydroxy]

I do agree with you - the reason I picked on Aust. J. Chem is because I don't use it much, and the only thing of note I remember from it is a short article on "Recent advances in the Negishi cross-coupling reaction" which was really not worth the paper it was printed on!

But yes, the quality of the refereeing is crucial, and yes, Tet. Lett. is something of a joke if you want any real information. In fact, there's a paper on the way (not one of mine) which proves that a particular compund was never made by the authors of a Tet. Lett. article, and in fact, the spectral data is incorrect for both what they did make and what they claim to have made!

[Dude]

Find the original paper in a subject area.  It requires an author willing to take a risk without resorting to the popular crutch of citation.  That paper is the most important regardless of whether it is the most widely cited (especially if the data is accurate - which sometimes it isn't).  A good analogy would be the graphical user interface.  Bill Gates has recieved the majority of the money from the invention and would be the most "cited", however, the concept was originated at Xerox (from researchers most people could not identify), developed by Apple and then made IBM compatible by Microsoft (a rather simple in comparison step relative to the original invention).