Figure 1. A word cloud created from the titles of the top 100 most cited articles from the ten surgical journals with the highest impact factors over the last decade.
The top ten journals over the last decade as assessed by impact factor in order were: Annals of Surgery, American Journal of Transplantation, American Journal of Surgical Pathology, British Journal of Surgery, Liver Transplantation, Transplantation, Endoscopy, Annals of Surgical Oncology, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry and the Journal of Vascular Surgery. [/i]The most commonly used word in the titles of the 100 most highly cited articles was ‘transplantation’ followed by ‘renal’, ‘liver’ and ‘resection’. ‘Randomized’, ‘results’ and ‘trial’ were also commonly used words.
This word cloud provides an interesting snapshot of what has been regarded as important within the surgical profession over the last decade. Trials of renal and liver transplantation have been highly cited over the last decade, reflecting the increasing importance of these topics. It may also reflect the fact that three of the ten surgical journals selected were transplantation specific journals.
Visualizing data in innovative ways is an integral part of the scientific process as it allows patterns and trends to be analyzed. Word clouds represent one method of visualizing data and in this case illustrate the hot topics[/i] of the last decade.
Article first published online: 14 MAR 2011
DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2011.03459.x
American Journal of TransplantationVolume 11, Issue 4, pages 871–872,April 2011
