[WikiEN-l] Hmm, scientists seem to like us as a resource

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting geni <geniice at gmail.com>:

> On 11/12/2007, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/astronomers-ten.html
>>
>> The scientists recommends Wikipedia to the journalist for backup of
>> what he's saying - because we have the references listed and in place.
>
> When citeing journals wikipedia seems to favor high impact journals to
> a slightly higher degree than the general scientific community.

There are a variety of reasons for that. First, lay people are more 
likely to be
aware of high impact journals. We've all heard of Nature for example. Second,
high impact journals are more likely to be easily accessible. Many Wikipedians
edit from libraries or universities and those institutions will be more likely
to subscribe to high impact journals. Third, high impact journals have higher
search engine rankings so if one is looking for a source for something 
and does
a google search it will more likely turn up a high impact journal.