Top journals in sociology ranked by 2007 impact factor

	Journal	Citations in 2007 to articles from 2005-06	Impact factor for 2007	Number of articles in 2007
1	American Journal of Sociology	7,264	3.338	37
2	American Sociological Review	8,092	3.7	42
3	British Journal of Sociology	957	2.449
4	Annual Review of Sociology	2,984	2.400	25
5	Global Networks – A Journal of Transnational Affairs	269	1.886	25
6	Sociology of Health & Illness	1,340	1.759	55
7	Journal of Marriage and the Family	5,447	1.756	81
8	Economy and Society	901	1.678	28
9	Social Networks	890	1.644	34
10	Social Problems	1,520	1.577

The data above provide the latest ranking by impact factor for journals of sociology indexed by Thomson Reuters in its Journal Citations Report for the social sciences for 2007. Sixty-five of 96 sociology journals in this database received 200 or more citations in 2007, and the top ten in impact factor are listed above. The impact factor is simply one measure of a journal’s influence (there are many others). It is a weighted measure – of citations per paper – and as such it is an attempt to compare journals of the same subject area that publish different numbers of papers each year. Journals producing many articles would typically attract more citations than those publishing comparatively fewer articles. The impact factor is calculated as citations in year C to a journal’s contents in years A and B, divided by the number of regular articles and reviews published in years A and B.

As such, this is a relatively short-term measure of journal influence. In a field such as sociology, articles tend to receive citations many years after their publication, and the peak citation rate may be five years or more after an article appears. For this reason, the above ranking should be interpreted as “early returns” on the current status of professional journals in sociology.