Abstract

Introduction: With the introduction of electronic databases in the end of the 20th century, scientific dissemination has entered a new era of scientific advancement. These databases have accepted scientific journals, regardless of their impact factors, and their articles have been equally presented. In this new reality, the search for knowledge is no longer based on the value of the journal, but on the content quality of the articles, without considering the name of their authors. Considering that impact factors and most other indexes were created to classify scientific journals, it is unsuitable to use them to evaluate the authors of published articles, much less to qualify researchers or their works. A correct conclusion cannot be reached using an inappropriate evaluation method. Conclusion: There are adequate indexes to classify scientific journals, but these indexes were not created and should not be used to evaluate authors of scientific articles or researchers, so as to avoid serious mistakes and injustices.