Citations to popular science magazines: a case of Science Reporter

Abstract

Popular science magazines are not considered scholarly publications by the academic and scientific community. Publishing in popular science magazines is not considered for academic appraisals or career advancements. Because of this, many researchers who have a passion for creative writing shy away from publishing in science magazines. Even though there are studies that have used the ‘Cited Reference Search’ feature to rank non-indexed journals, no such studies were carried out to rank popular science magazines. In the present study, we analyzed the articles cited by various citation databases. The study found that a considerable number of articles published in Science Reporter, one of the oldest and most prominent English science magazines published in India, have found a place in various citation databases like JCR and Google Scholar. The results of the present study can be used to rank the quality of science magazines and popularize popular science writing among the scientific community.