STEM Access

Journal Citations and Impact Factor

Last week, I talked about H-Index which is a metric for measuring the impact an author has in his field.  This week, I will discuss Impact Factor (IF) which is one way to measure the impact a journal has in a field. Impact Factors for a journal are available through Journal Citation Reports which is produced by the same company that produces Web of Knowledge.  The simple impact factor for a journal in any given year is the average number of citations in that year of articles from the previous two years.  So if a journal has an impact...
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STEM Access

More Controlled Vocabulary

As I mentioned last week, my original theme for the month was to go over controlled vocabulary such as the Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS) used in Scitation and IEEE Xplore, the Mathematics Subject Classification (MCS) used in MathSciNet, and the Computing Classification System (CCS) used in the ACM Digital Library.  But I decided that there wasn’t enough to say to blog about each one separately. All of them have similar hierarchical structure like MeSH, but without as many tiers.  PACS has up to 5 subheadings, MCS up to 3, and CCS up to 3.  The headings and...
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STEM Access

MeSH Descriptors

Last week talked about chemistry.  Today we talk about medicine.  Specifically, we will discuss Medical Subject Headings (MeSH).  MeSH is an example of controlled vocabulary which we is our topic for this month.  Controlled vocabulary is used in indexes to describe subjects systematically and consistently, and MeSH descriptors are probably some of the most widely used.  It’s no surprise that MedLine, PubGet, PubMed use MeSH since they’re biology related.  But they’re used in Scopus and IEEE Xplore also. MeSH were created by the National Library of Medicine and are updated every year.  Currently there are over 26,000 descriptors and...
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STEM Access

Presenting your Data

Now that you have decided how to organize your data, how do you present it?  Today’s information is based in part on A.V. Abela‘s popular Chart Chooser diagram which is also available in an interactive form.  Although the chart chooser was designed for presentations, it is handy for papers also.  My main point is you need to know what kind of argument you are presenting with your data.  My second point is that most people can interpret comparisons better than absolutes so you need a reference point for your data.  For example, is 80° a hot or cold day? ...
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STEM Access

Organizing Data in your Paper

Last time, I mentioned that if you have multiple experiments that you should decide on an order and then stick to that order.  So how do you decide on an order?  Let’s say this is your data You might decide to order it by shape (squiggles, ovals, diamonds) and then by number (one, two, three). Or maybe the other way around by number and then by shape.     Or maybe you decide to order it by color (red, green, purple) and then by shading (empty, solid, striped).  Or by shading then color. Or by shape and then shading...
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