Despite continued attention, finding adequate criteria for distinguishing “good” from “bad” scholarly journals remains an elusive goal. In this essay, I propose a solution informed by the work of Imre Lakatos and his methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP). I begin by reviewing several notable attempts at appraising journal quality – focusing primarily on the impact factor and development of journal blacklists and whitelists. In doing so, I note their limitations and link their overarching goals to those found within the philosophy of science. I argue that Lakatos’s MSRP and specifically his classifications of “progressive” and “degenerative” research programmes can be analogized and repurposed for the evaluation of scholarly journals. I argue that this alternative framework resolves some of the limitations discussed above and offers a more considered evaluation of journal quality – one that helps account for the historical evolution of journal-level publication practices and attendant contributions to the growth (or stunting) of scholarly knowledge. By doing so, the seeming problem of journal demarcation is diminished. In the process I utilize two novel tools (the mistake index and scite index) to further illustrate and operationalize aspects of the MSRP.

尽管持续受到关注，但找到区分“好”和“坏”学术期刊的适当标准仍然是一个难以实现的目标。在本文中，我根据 Imre Lakatos 的工作及其科学研究计划的方法提出了一个解决方案（厂商建议零售价）。我首先回顾了几项评估期刊质量的著名尝试——主要关注期刊黑名单和白名单的影响因子和发展。在这样做的过程中，我注意到了它们的局限性，并将它们的总体目标与科学哲学中发现的目标联系起来。我认为 Lakatos 的建议零售价，特别是他对“进步”和“退化”研究项目的分类可以类推并重新用于评估学术期刊。我认为这种替代框架解决了上面讨论的一些局限性，并提供了一种更深思熟虑的期刊质量评估——一种有助于解释期刊级出版实践的历史演变以及随之而来的对学术知识增长（或发育迟缓）的贡献. 通过这样做，期刊划分的表面问题被减少了。在这个过程中，我使用了两个新工具（错误索引和 scite 索引）来进一步说明和操作 MSRP 的各个方面。