Reply to “Ten Simple Rules for Getting Published”

Rule 10 for getting published [1] carries advice to publish in journals of high impact (high citation rate). Riding the coat-tails of eminent, high-impact journals is good marketing, but the task is easier said than done, because the higher the impact is the greater is the competition for print space and the more likely the editor is to offer unhelpful feedback, such as a statement on a form letter that he rejects many worthwhile manuscripts for lack of space. Good science may appear in the pages of journals of many degrees of impact. In support of that notion, current impact factors [2] appear in Table 1 for each of the journals (or successor—Am J Epidemiol continued J Chron Dis) cited in this essay (see References).