Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is the Clarivate metric published in Journal Citation Reports that summarizes a journal’s average citation impact in a given year. Roughly: citations in the census year to “citable” items the journal published in the previous two years, divided by the count of those items. The denominator usually includes research articles and reviews; letters to the editor are typically excluded from the citable-item count.
JIF is a journal-level indicator; it does not prove the quality of any single paper. Raw JIF comparisons across fields mislead because citation speed differs by discipline. Quartiles or category ranks are therefore read alongside JIF in many evaluations. CiteScore on Scopus uses a four-year window and a wider document set—do not equate the numbers to JIF. Access-wise, JCR is usually subscription-based; CiteScore is more openly visible via Scopus.
In Turkey, incentive and appointment texts often ask for “Impact Factor” or “JCR Q.” When writing a dossier, state the year, category, and that the source is JCR. Classic IF culture differs under A&HCI; not every WoS journal has a meaningful JIF story. The citable-item entry explains the denominator.
Practically: note a target journal’s current JIF and quartile with the JCR year, then check whether Scopus metrics tell a conflicting story. On this site, Find quartile (/tools/find-quartile) gives a quick JCR/SJR glance by ISSN and year. Treat JIF as one signal among peer review, indexing, and predatory-risk checks—not as a solitary “good journal” stamp.
Checking the document-type field in WoS/Scopus is the most concrete way to see whether an output sits in a JIF denominator.