Positive correlation between quality and quantity in academic journals

This study reports a positive correlation between impact factor and article number in scholarly journals. High impact journals publish more articles. Quality and quantity are positively correlated. This is a common trend in different disciplines as revealed by empirical data. The correlation is obscure in a direct plot of article number versus impact factor. A plot of accumulated article number versus normalized rank of impact factor clearly demonstrates the correlation. The reasons behind this correlation are discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.