Quartile Score
The value of an Impact Factor itself does not show you the relative importance of a journal. Instead, you have to compare the Impact Factors of journals in the same field to identify a journal’s impact.
The Quartile in Category or the Quartile Score, on the other hand, shows the relative location of a journal along the range of an Impact Factor distribution.
To view the Quartile Score of a journal, from a journal record, click on the button under “Journal Information”. Then you will see a table showing the ranking of this journal in its subject catagories based on Impact Factor.
The journal “Fuel Cells”, for example, ranks 18th out of 79 in the “Energy & fuels” category. It falls into the highest quartile (Q1) in this category and is among the top 25% of the IF distribution. In the “Electrochemistry” category, this journal ranks 8th out of 26 journals, a mid-high position, Q2, which donotes between top 50% and top 25% of the IF distribution.
Q3 denotes a middle-low position (top 75% to top 50%), and Q4 bottom position (bottom 25% of the IF distribution).