Abstract: In order to optimize the running strategy of sci-tech journals and improve their influence, this study analyzed the relationship between journal influence, publication delay and quantity of papers by using influence factor as the index of journal influence. The agricultural journals were taken as an example. Impact factors were normalized to eliminate the influence of natural factors of journals such as popularity of a journal on the impact factors so that the journals were comparable. Then, models were established to quantify the relationship between normalized impact factors and publication delay (or publication delay and paper load). The normalized impact factor would not affected by publication delay until the publication delay was smaller than 350 d (about 1 year) at least. The logarithm of normalized impact factor changed with logarithm of paper load and publication delay following a linear function. According to the model, the normalized impact factor decreased with increasing the paper load when the paper load was between 300 and 700, otherwise, it increased with paper load. Therefore, we suggested to shorten the publication delay within 1 year at least and adjusted the paper load according to model in order to improve the influence of journals.

Key words: sci-tech journal influence, influence factor, publication delay, paper load