Journals cited by Wikipedia (or JCW) is a bot-generated compilation of academic journals cited on Wikipedia, at least those cited using the |journal= parameter of the various {{cite xxx}} templates of Wikipedia. The current version of the compilation was generated using the database dump of 1 October 2026. Due to a lack of advanced filtering and template misuse, the compilation will include several books, conference proceedings, magazines, monographs, newspapers, websites, and other publications (see reading and interpreting the data below).
Most popular publishers (i.e. regroups all entries that are associated with a publisher, e.g. members of Category:Inderscience Publishers academic journals, redirects to members of that category, redirects to Inderscience Publishers, and likely typos of those). Journals without articles or redirects will usually not be picked up, although they can be added manually for individual publishers.
These lists are useful for discovering journals of interest to WikiProject members, but will also facilitate cleanup efforts. However, many entries on this list will be neither notable nor reliable. The presence of a source on these lists should not be considered an endorsement of the source.
Reading the data
Title (bold link): page existed at time of database dump
Title (bold underlined link): page existed, as a disambiguation page, at time of database dump
Title (italicized link): page existed, as a redirect, at time of database dump
Title (italicized underlined link): page existed, as a redirect to a disambiguation page, at time of database dump
Title (regular blue link) page did not exist at time of database dump
Title (non-link): title contains invalid characters for a Wikipedia page title
A red link mean the article currently does not exist. This is either because the corresponding article has been deleted (in this case it will have some formatting), or did not exist at the time of the dump (regular red link).
As a side note, you can easily link to these entries with the following wikicode
Be aware that the targets of these links will often vary from dump to dump as entries get reordered, move to different subpages, etc.
Interpreting the data
All numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt for several reasons:
A large number of citations does not necessarily imply notability, nor does it imply reliability. Sometimes a journal will have been cited to support a single fact on many similar pages, or perhaps even by a bot auto-generating content. Sometimes a journal will have been cited because they were involved in controversies. Conversely, a low number of citation does not necessarily imply non-notability or non-reliability.
Citations not based on templates, such as <ref>J. Smith (2010), "Article of things", ''Journal of Foobar'', '''13'''(7):28–31</ref> are completely ignored by the compilation. Citations with a templated DOI via {{doi}} or {{doi-inline}}, such as <ref>J. Smith (2010), "Article of things", ''Journal of Foobar'', '''13'''(7):28–31 {{doi|10.4321/abcdef}}</ref> are partially supported.
Citations in comments, like <!--* {{cite journal |author=J. Smith |year=2010 |title=Article of things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=13 |issue=7 |pages=28–31}} -->, are counted as normal.
Re-used citations, such as <ref name=Smith2010>{{cite journal |author=J. Smith |year=2010 |title=Article of things |journal=Journal of Foobar |volume=13 |issue=7 |pages=28–31}}</ref> with later instances of <ref name=Smith2010/> are counted once.
It is quite common for a citation to be copied from one page and pasted into another - this may make any given typo or formatting error seem more common than it really is.
The same article may be cited multiple times on the same page, using a different template each time. This may make a journal/abbreviation seem popular when in fact it is only used on a few unique pages
Many editors misuse citation templates, creating all kinds of weird things that would never actually be searched for.
The list, like Wikipedia's linking system, is case sensitive. However, Wikipedia's search function is not case sensitive so unusual capitalizations don't really need redirects.
Thus, most current red links should probably stay that way. A huge sea of red does not reflect a failure of this WikiProject, but rather poor template usage by thousands of editors across Wikipedia.
Additionally, the WP:JCW/TAR and WP:JCW/PUB compilations will try to create sensible groupings of related entries – the first by regrouping all entries that redirect to the same 'target' article, the second by grouping entries that share the same publisher. These groupings will reflect the current article/redirect/categorization structure of Wikipedia for the most part.
Note that this does not guarantee to group Journal of Physics A-related entries separately from Journal of Physics B-related entries, or regroup all Journal of Physics journals distinctly from other journals that are not part of the Journal of Physics series. But that's generally how things will be grouped when the article/redirect/categorization structure allows for it.
If, e.g. IOP Publishing has a journal without an article (or redirect) on Wikipedia, chances are it will not be categorized under 'IOP Publishing'. However, see the next bullet.
Adding missing journals to publisher groupings is possible. If you know of journals that should be grouped under a publisher, but aren't, mention it at WT:JCW and someone will help you.
Several (usually smaller) publishers lack groupings for them. Those can be added once identified. If you can't find a publisher entry, mention it at WT:JCW and someone will help you.
Please do not create redirects for obviously bad inputs or typos. For example, Sienec (journal) is not a legitimate search term, and anywhere Sienec (journal) occurs on Wikipedia should remain redlinked to signal the typo/bad linking.
Feedback
Suggestions for improving the compilation are highly encouraged.
For general suggestions and issues unrelated to WP:CITEWATCH, leave comments at WT:JCW
