3 ms·

Low citation count does not imply it's an untrustworthy journal. Sometimes niche knowledge is useful – as in the present case of food contamination studies!

• timr 5y ago
  No, but it implies they have a low bar for acceptance. You can't take impact factor of the journal as the sole indicator of quality for a particular paper (even NEJM publishes garbage), but it should strongly influence your prior. Especially for general-interest studies like this, if the results were impactful and well done they'd be published in a better journal. Assuming that this is done well (I have no idea), the fact that it's in a super-niche journal means that it's likely not surprising/interesting to anyone in the field.
  • spekcular 5y ago
    Let's not conflate "quality" of the paper with whether the results are surprising or interesting to experts. As far as I tell, the work is competently done and provides useful information to consumers. Namely, that commercially available ceramic mugs likely do not pose a lead hazard, with quantitative estimates of the lead they leach. It's not going to win a Nobel prize – but I don't think that should be the bar for taking food safety research seriously.
    • timr 5y ago
      I'm not conflating the two. I said explicitly I don't have any basis to judge.