Articles in high-impact journals are, on average, more frequently cited. But
are they cited more often because those articles are somehow more "citable"? Or
are they cited more often simply because they are published in a high-impact
journal? Although some evidence suggests the latter, the causal relationship is
not clear. We here compare citations of preprints to citations of the published
version to uncover the causal mechanism. We build on an earlier model of
citation dynamics to infer the causal effect of journals on citations. We find
that high-impact journals select articles that tend to attract more citations.
At the same time, we find that high-impact journals augment the citation rate
of published articles. Our results yield a deeper understanding of the role of
journals in the research system. The use of journal metrics in research
evaluation has been increasingly criticized in recent years and article-level
citations are sometimes suggested as an alternative. Our results show that
removing impact factors from evaluation does not negate the influence of
journals. This insight has important implications for changing practices of
research evaluation.

比较预印本和已发表论文的引用情况，推断高影响期刊对引用量的因果效应。发现高影响期刊不仅选择引用量更高的文章，同时还提高文章的引用率。研究表明，即使不考虑影响因子，期刊在研究评估中的影响仍然存在，对研究评估实践的改变具有重要影响。

推断期刊对引用的因果效应

Inferring the causal effect of journals on citations

The lack of predictability of citation-based measures frequently used to
gauge impact, from impact factors to short-term citations, raises a fundamental
question: Is there long-term predictability in citation patterns? Here, we
derive a mechanistic model for the citation dynamics of individual papers,
allowing us to collapse the citation histories of papers from different
journals and disciplines into a single curve, indicating that all papers tend
to follow the same universal temporal pattern. The observed patterns not only
help us uncover basic mechanisms that govern scientific impact but also offer
reliable measures of influence that may have potential policy implications.

研究论文提供一种基于机械模型的引用动态模式，具有预测科学影响力和潜在政策意义的可靠测量方式。