The Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) tracks selected journals in literature, history, philosophy, art history, linguistics, musicology, and related fields within the Web of Science Core Collection. In the humanities, knowledge also advances through books, chapters, and long-form debate; article citation velocity differs from medicine or engineering. A&HCI should not be read with the same “IF league” logic as SCIE/SSCI.
Key point: because of that citation culture, classic Journal Impact Factor is not used as a central performance indicator for many journals in this space the way it is for SCIE/SSCI titles. Clarivate’s product family reflects different metrics and evaluation habits for the humanities. A&HCI inclusion is still a selective index signal—but “what’s the IF?” is not always the right question.
Evaluation committees sometimes score A&HCI under the WoS umbrella and sometimes require field-appropriate extras (press prestige, book peer review, exhibition or performance). Practically, knowing which WoS collection a target journal sits in stops you from measuring yourself with the wrong yardstick. Scopus humanities coverage also differs; cross-checking helps.
In this glossary, the Impact Factor entry is framed around SCIE/SSCI and JCR—do not assume it applies identically to every A&HCI title. The indexing and peer-review entries explain the quality expectations behind admission. If your field is arts or humanities, interpret quartile and IF talk alongside disciplinary associations and institutional rules.