Citation metrics for appraising scientists: misuse, gaming and proper use

To the editor: Ioannidis and Boyack discussed misuse of and gaming mechanisms for citation metrics in the publication records of scientists.1 Studies have suggested some other limitations regarding citation‐based bibliometric indices in the evaluation of articles2 or journals.3 A recent study showed the confounding effect of highly cited items on impact factor calculation.3 Previously, we measured a considerable effect for a series of highly cited articles affiliated with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluations (IHME; University of Washington, Seattle) on the impact factor of The Lancet.4 Here, we evaluate the impact of these articles on the researchers’ quantitative bibliometric indices.