Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A researcher choosing a journal reads New Phytologist's JIF and quartile in the current JCR, records the data year, and compares it with the 5-year JIF and JCI rather than relying on one number.
- Is an instance
A librarian explains to faculty why two websites show different New Phytologist impact factors: they quote different JCR data years or different metrics.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Quoting a New Phytologist impact factor with no JCR data year, or confusing it with CiteScore, which comes from Scopus.
- Not an instance
Treating the journal's JIF as a score for one article published in it.
Editorial commentary
Quick answer: New Phytologist’s Journal Impact Factor is a figure Clarivate calculates for the journal once a year and publishes in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). It changes with every release and is tied to a data year, so the number to cite is the one shown in the current JCR for the journal (through your library’s subscription) or on the journal’s own metrics page, together with the year.
What the impact factor is
The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a journal-level citation measure. Clarivate describes the JCR as an annual report on the citation impact of a defined set of journals, and describes the JIF as a single journal-level measurement that should not be considered in isolation (Clarivate, Journal Citation Reports product page, checked 29 October 2026).
New Phytologist is owned and produced by the New Phytologist Foundation, which also produces the journal Plants, People, Planet (New Phytologist Foundation website, checked 29 October 2026). Each indexed journal receives its own separate value.
New Phytologist’s value: where to read the current figure
A journal’s JIF is year-specific. Each JCR release reports a value for one data year, and the next release replaces it. For that reason this page does not freeze a number that would be out of date after the next release. To get the figure you can cite:
- Open the Journal Citation Reports through your institution’s library, search for New Phytologist and note both the value and the JCR data year shown.
- Or read the metrics page of the journal itself, which should name the JCR year it quotes.
- When you write the figure into a CV, grant report or tenure file, state it as for example "JIF, JCR 20XX" with the year you actually read, never as a bare number.
How the impact factor is calculated
The two-year JIF is a ratio. The numerator is the number of citations received in the JCR data year to items the journal published in the two preceding years; the denominator is the number of citable items the journal published in those two years. Clarivate treats articles, reviews and proceedings papers as citable items and excludes front matter such as editorial material and letters from the denominator (Clarivate, The Clarivate Impact Factor). The result is an average over the whole journal, which means a small number of highly cited papers can lift the value for every article in the journal.
Quartile and other metrics
A JCR release reports more than the JIF. Per Clarivate’s JCR documentation, the other metrics include the 5-year JIF, the Journal Citation Indicator (JCI, field-normalised so that the category average is 1.0), the Eigenfactor Score, the Immediacy Index and a quartile ranking.
- Quartile (Q1 to Q4): the journal’s rank quartile within its assigned JCR subject category.
- 5-year JIF: uses a longer citation window.
- JCI: is field-normalised, so values can be read against a category average of 1.0.
- CiteScore: a different metric, calculated by Elsevier from Scopus data rather than Web of Science. See CiteScore vs Impact Factor.
Why websites report different values for New Phytologist
Searching for the journal’s impact factor returns sites that show different figures. The usual reasons are mundane: they quote different JCR data years, one quotes the 5-year JIF and another the 2-year JIF, one confuses the JIF with CiteScore (a different database and window), or a page was last updated before the newest JCR release. A figure with no year and no named metric cannot be checked, so treat it as unverified until you find the same value in the JCR or the journal’s own page.
Using the impact factor responsibly
Clarivate says the JIF should not be considered in isolation. It describes the journal, not any article or author in it. The DORA declaration’s general recommendation is not to use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles; see the guide Journal impact factor and quartile rankings for how to read a JIF alongside quartile.
Frequently asked questions
What is the New Phytologist impact factor?
It is the Journal Impact Factor Clarivate reports for New Phytologist in the Journal Citation Reports: a journal-level ratio of citations to recent items, tied to one JCR data year.
Where can I find the current value?
In the Journal Citation Reports through your library, or on the journal’s own metrics page. Record the data year with the number. For other journals see the sibling guides Scientific Reports impact factor and ACS Nano impact factor.
Is the impact factor the same as CiteScore?
No. CiteScore is calculated by Elsevier from Scopus data, while the JIF comes from Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports.
Does the journal’s impact factor describe my paper?
No. It describes the journal as a whole, not any single article published in it.
Sources
- Clarivate, Journal Citation Reports: https://clarivate.com/academia-government/scientific-and-academic-research/research-funding-analytics/journal-citation-reports/ (checked 29 October 2026).
- Clarivate, The Clarivate Impact Factor: https://clarivate.com/academia-government/essays/impact-factor/ (checked 26 August 2026).
- New Phytologist Foundation: https://www.newphytologist.org/ (checked 29 October 2026).
- San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, recommendations: https://sfdora.org/read/ (checked 29 October 2026).
- Elsevier, CiteScore: https://www.elsevier.com/products/scopus/metrics/citescore (checked 29 October 2026).
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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