journal publication and journal lists

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Mar 29, 2010, at 8:23 AM, Frans Plank wrote to Nigel Vincent:

> ... I'd assume readers have their personal rankings of what they  
> like to read (and cite), journal-wise or self-published, in their  
> heads or guts anyhow.  So, why bother with ERIHs and the like?  Is  
> linguistics really such a vast enterprise that hiring and firing,  
> promotion, funding and such business can't be done properly without  
> such assistance -- by just reading the work someone has done, rather  
> than checking her/his h-index?

I can't speak for linguistics programs around the world, but in the  
U.S., the informed opinion of the linguistics faculty is never enough  
to serve for recommendations for hiring and firing, promotion and  
tenure, setting salaries, etc.  Committees and administrators at  
various levels (very few of whom know anything about linguistics, much  
less are linguists) may require statements from the candidate,  
evaluations of teaching, publications lists, and recommendations from  
outside evaluators (who sometimes must themselves be established as  
authorities on the basis of their own publications list and citation  
indices) about research.  For some types of cases at some  
institutions, citation indices are *required*, and often the absence  
of such indices (even when they aren't actually required) is viewed as  
a minus by university committees and administrators.

So we're sometimes stuck with using citation indices, and the best we  
can do is search for the better ones.  (And then it's not unknown for  
higher evaluating bodies to ask pointedly why the department did *not*  
use the "standard" Thomson Reuters indices.)

arnold