[Impact factor or do we have to choose between the impact factor and the Revue de Chirurgie Orthopédique?]

It is common practice to evaluate the scientific value of a candidate for a university or hospital position using the mean of the impact factors of the journals he/she has published in. This shows that the true composition and true meaning of the impact factor are not sufficiently understood. The impact factor was invented in the 60s to help librarians choose the most read journals. The impact factor provides an accurate definition of the distribution of a journal, but in no case the quality of its publications. Moreover, the impact factor has many technical limitations that are detailed in this article. This strongly limits the accuracy of the impact factor to compare between journals of different specialties. There is no correlation between the scientific value of a single author and the impact factor of the journals he/she has published in. Eugene Garfield, the inventor of the impact factor, has emphasized that it should not be used to judge the scientific value of a candidate.