Citation Metric Misuse, Interpretive Ambiguity, and Interdisciplinary Complexity—The Case in Biomechanics Journals

Biomechanics is an interdisciplinary field with varying citation patterns and centrality of journals where researchers publish. The audit culture of scientific publication has driven persistent, inconsistent, and questionable interpretation of citations and metrics in selecting and evaluating journals. This article extends the understanding of bias in citation patterns and journal metrics for eight biomechanics journals. Citations from three databases and several journal metrics were examined from 2019 to 2023. Long-term changes (1999-2023) were documented for the most prestigious journal in the field (Journal of Biomechanics). There was large variation and positive skew in citations and citation rates to top cited articles in the biomechanics journals from 2021 in all databases. The skew and variation in citations and subject categories/areas assigned by databases contributed to biased journal usage metrics for biomechanics journals. For the Journal of Biomechanics, citation patterns led to opposing changes in overall usage (Journal Impact Factor) and field-normalized usage (Source-Normalized Impact per Paper) journal metrics. Evidence-based interpretations of journal metrics are illustrated and recommendations made to limit bias in planning, publishing, and evaluating research in interdisciplinary fields such as biomechanics.