Study of the Highly Cited Papers in Northwest Pharmaceutical Journal and the Editing Strategy

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to study 194 highly cited papers with cited frequency of more than 20 published in Northwest Pharmaceutical Journal from 1997 to 2016 using Chinese Citation Database. Results showed that the highly cited papers accounted for 5.48% of the cited papers, and 3.71% of all the papers. The cited frequency of highly cited papers accounted for 33.55% of the total cited frequency. The cited frequency of each highly cited paper was 36.28 on average. The cited frequency was between 20 and 29 among the most of the highly cited papers, which accounted for 50.00%. 64, 34 and 75 of the highly cited papers belonged to the column of Chinese medicine and natural medicine, pharmacology, and review respectively, and accounted for 32.99%, 17.53%, and 38.66% of the highly cited papers respectively. Among the highly cited papers, there were 119 (61.34%) research papers and 75 (38.66%) reviews. 167 of the highly cited papers reported research or application of traditional Chinese medicine, which accounted for 86.08%. 80.92% of the cited time of the top 20 highly cited papers were concentrated during the second to eleventh years following publication. Among the top 20 highly cited papers, the first author's affiliation was university in 14 papers, accounted for 70.00%. The cited rate is higher among research papers looking into quality inspection of traditional Chinese medicine, pharmacology of traditional Chinese medicine, extraction process of traditional Chinese medicine, chemical constituent of traditional Chinese medicine and reviews in Northwest Pharmaceutical Journal. Thus, we proposed corresponding editing strategies for enhancing the cited rates, and to provide a reference for the development of excellent papers, improve the quality of the journal, and to further expand the academic influence of the Journal.