Science AAAS forum: topic
This is a public forum
Science is better than Nature?
Amit Kumar Singh
Tuesday, 19 June 2007 12:16 UTC
Which one is on the TOP? Science or Nature?
Personally I love Nature and never miss the print copy, but hardly see Science in prints. Recent impect factors of Nature and Science are as follows.
Nature: 29.273
Science: 30.927
But what do you think personally? is Science really a better journal than Nature?
please tell us WHY?
-
Replies
-
hmm.. good question amit.
hmm.. good question amit.I’ll say Science is bit of American style and Nature is of Global style.
hmm.. good question amit.I’ll say Science is bit of American style and Nature is of Global style.Being a life scientists I like Nature.. as more related cotent.. but in Science somtime Not easy to find biology..
hmm.. good question amit.I’ll say Science is bit of American style and Nature is of Global style.Being a life scientists I like Nature.. as more related cotent.. but in Science somtime Not easy to find biology..My money is on Nature.
-
n yeah.. Science can’t beat Nature as they have more than 30 different publications..
-
Thanks Mate..
But it does mean that Science publish more diversity than Nature in single journal? -
Science is published by the AAAS, a non-profit organisation which ultimately means they are putting something back into Science.
Science has an audited global circulation of around 130,000, where are Natures last audit only showed 60,000!
-
Personally, Science is my preferred read and I disagree that it is a US centric publication. A recent issue of Science had an article on the relationship between science and the UK Government – a piece written by David King, Chief Scientific Adviser to Her Majesty’s Govt. The same issue covered news on a international CITES conference taking place in The Hague, the Netherlands, news from Japan and a career report on the UK and Ireland. In my view they are both a “must read” as they will never both publish the same paper. As to where I would want to see my research published? Well based on the previous post (Science is more widely read) and on the higher impact factor, it would be Science.
-
Very hard one to call. I think the subject balance of each journal may affect people’s perceptions more than the quality. In terms of impact factor there’s not much significance in the difference between them. As for circulation – you should remember that Science is a membership benefit for all those AAAS members so that accounts for the much higher print circulation I suspect.
Science is clearly less commercial than Nature which may be seen as a positive quality… but it has less resource to develop cool things like Nature Network and Connotea. I see it as less innovative (but I’m sure AAAS will tell me I’m wrong!).
I wouldn’t want to be without either title.
-
Those Impact Factors you quote are out of date. The latest Impact Factor for Nature is 28.751 (see the About the journal page) and for Science it is slightly less (they don’t seem to publish their impact factor on their website, but when the 2007 figures were recently announced, Nature is the top journal in the general science category).
Both journals are international and interdisciplinary, both have a weekly print edition. Both publish original research, news, reviews, and other comment. Both are published by organizations (AAAS and NPG) that are “putting something back into science”.
Nature does indeed have many sister publications: about 13 monthly titles publishing a mix of original research and comment (with a manuscript transfer system operating between them if authors desire to use it), 7 monthly review journals, about 7 monthly clinical practice journals. But these are all editorially independent of Nature (and each other).
-