Institutional Authority and Communication in Microbiology

Months of effort had gone into this immunology paper, and it was finally done.  After weeks of research, days of writing, and hours of editing Anne looked up from the document on her laptop towards the clock, as she was about to meet with Dr. Wilson, her mentor and research director.  Their aim was to decide which journals she would submit her paper to.

"That's going to depend on the journal's impact factor!"  It was one of the first things Dr. Wilson said.
"What's an impact factor?" asked Anne.  She had only briefly heard of the term before.
"It's how the credibility of a journal is gauged.  Each journal gets a new impact factor each year," Dr. Wilson replied.
"But how do they calculate it?"
"Well, it's based on the average number of citations of articles from the journal in more recent articles published worldwide [2. Regulating Standard]," said Dr. Wilson.  The more the articles from the current year have cited those articles from a particular journal from the past year, the higher their year's impact factor.  It allows for a measurement of the credibility and relevance of the research being published by each journal."

"Who implemented it?" asked Anne.
"A man named Eugene Garfield devised it, but the organization that is now in charge of implementing and regulating the impact factor process is called Thomson Institute for Science Information [1. Authoritative Organization], or Thomson Reuters is what it's now called.  They have a website that offers the most extensive bibliographic database in the world, as well as a blog keeping track of trending topics and related articles for reference [4. Authoritative Publication]."
Anne became animated. "Do they have a journal? Could I submit my paper to them?"
"No, they don't have a journal," replied Dr. Wilson.  "If they did, it would be far too easy for them to skew their own impact factor.  They already have some criticism from researchers, primarily that the validity of an article should not be based on the impact factor of the journal it has been published in, but rather that that article should stand on its own.  These complaints, as well as others, were taken into account and have established a sort of democratic set of rules to govern Thomson ISI's impact factor [5. Challenging Authority/Changing Standards]."

"Well," said Anne, still hopeful, "perhaps they have a conference or international event I can attend?"
Dr. Wilson explained "Not exactly, but they do have a Citation Index for approved conferences worldwide [3. Influential Event], where emerging ideas and new research is tracked and made accessible for people like you and me.  Speaking of which, which journals are you thinking about submitting your paper to?"