Prestige and impact Archives of Budo for scientific research of the martial arts

Archives of Budo after nearly five years since the first article appeared (2005) has been included for coverage in the Thomson Reuters – Science Citation Index Expanded focus on: Sports Science & Medicine. The unique value Archives of Budo (mainly depends on the fact that annually the journal accumulates at the most scientific articles of martial arts) proves that despite the large number of downloads of individual articles, there are few citations of these papers recorded by the Journal Citation Report. The fact that in any other journal of Sports Science & Medicine evaluated by Thomson Reuters in which appears annually as many publications on the martial arts as at Archives of Budo is proof that only a few scientists engaged in this issue. The term “budo” in the title of the journal is used in a broad sense, because it is addressed to “the global reader”. We mean well-educated people from different parts of the world who read scientific publications. Probably many, if not most, associate “budo” with the specific martial arts regardless of the origin (i.e. with the Japanese judo, Chinese kunk fu, Korean taekwondo, Brazilian capoeira, the Israeli kravmaga etc). Anyone who deals with budō in the strict meaning (combined with tradition and culture of Japan) we encourage to study book Budō: The Martial Ways of Japan. Author’s address: Bartłomiej Barczyński, Index Copernicus International S.A. , Al. Jerozolimskie 146 C, 02-305 Warsaw, Poland, e-mail: barczynski@wp.pl Impact Factor – irrespective of the limitations emphasized in numerous publications – is a major, widely accepted criterion for quality evaluation of scientific journals. Established by Science Citation Index Expanded evaluation criteria of a scientific journal are for the editor-in-chiefs and editorial boards the basic recommendations which should be respected to meet suitable journal standards (scientific and editorial). In effect – journal which complies with the standards and other formal requirements can be included by Thomson Reuters in the system of the evaluation [1–3]. Archives of Budo, what we are proud to announce at website, after nearly five years since the first article appeared (2005) has been included for coverage in the Thomson Reuters – Science Citation Index Expanded focus on: Sports Science & Medicine. This achievement we mainly ascribe to the authors of publications, which appeared since 2005 in the Archives of Budo. In a manner of speaking, psychological barrier has been broken, which associate the phenomenon of martial arts, mainly with the popularity of these forms of exercises among youths, as well as an attractive good of electronic media and cinema. Although experts may not be surprising that for many years the issue of martial arts (self-defense, combat sports, etc.) is an area of exploration of many detailed sciences (anthropology, biomechanics, physiology, psychology, sociology, etc.) and is the subject of interdisciplinary researches. However, monitoring of download statistics available for each article let us observe that all papers arouse permanent interest (furthermore, detailed statistics – available for publisher – proves that topic of scientific papers interest readers from all continents). Hitherto the most studied article [4] downloaded 3,009 times, until 30 March 2010 (30 August 2009 was 2,154 downloads). The unique value of Archives of Budo (mainly depends on the fact that annually the journal accumulates at the most scientific articles of martial arts) proves that despite the large number of downloads of individual articles, there are few citations of these papers recorded by the Journal Citation Report. The fact that in any other journal of Sports Science & Medicine evaluated by Authors’ Contribution: A Study Design B Data Collection C Statistical Analysis D Manuscript Preparation E Funds Collection VOLUME 6 | ISSUE 1 | 2010 | 53 © ARCHIVES OF BUDO | SCIENCE OF MARTIAL ARTS  EDITORIAL