The w-Index: A Measure to Assess Scientific Impact by Focusing on Widely Cited Papers

Based on the principles of the h-index, I propose a new measure, the w-index, as a particularly simple and more useful way to assess the substantial impact of a researcher's work, especially regarding excellent papers. The w-index can be defined as follows: If w of a researcher's papers have at least 10w citations each and the other papers have fewer than 10(w + 1) citations, that researcher's w-index is w. The results demonstrate that there are noticeable differences between the w-index and the h-index, because the w-index plays close attention to the more widely cited papers. These discrepancies can be measured by comparing the ranks of 20 astrophysicists, a few famous physical scientists, and 16 Price medalists. Furthermore, I put forward the w(q)-index to improve the discriminatory power of the w-index and to rank scientists with the same w. The factor q is the least number of citations a researcher with w needed to reach w + 1. In terms of both simplicity and accuracy, the w-index or w(q)-index can be widely used for evaluation of scientists, journals, conferences, scientific topics, research institutions, and so on.