First, the World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG) is a leading academic journal devoted to reporting the latest cutting-edge research progress and findings of basic research and clinical practice in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology. It was launched on October 1, 1995 and has since been consistently published by the Baishideng Publishing Group (BPG). Currently, WJG publishes four issues a month, for a total of 48 issues a year.

Second, the WJG Editorial Board consists of 1377 experts and scholars in gastroenterology and hepatology from 68 countries and regions across the globe. The major task of WJG Editorial Board members is to conduct peer review and contribute editorials.

Third, WJG complies with the ethical norms and standards of publication. To this end, WJG publishes online the Similarity Reports generated by iThenticate and Google detection as well as any relevant documents related to academic norms and rules for each manuscript upon its online release.

Fourth, WJG is indexed in many important databases, such as Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Index Medicus, MEDLINE, PubMed, PubMed Central, and Scopus. The most recent Journal Citation Reports released by Thomson Reuters cites the impact factor of WJG as 2.787 for 2015.

Fifth, WJG publish highly influential papers on major diseases of the digestive system. WJG invite distinguished experts from across the globe and represent timely commentaries or original research on alcoholic liver disease, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, hepatitis virus infection (both B and C forms), hepatocellular carcinoma, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, liver transplantation, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and pancreatic cancer. During the publication period of 2013-2015, WJG has published a total of 1023 commentary and original research articles, including 296 in 2013, 266 in 2014, and 461 in 2015. The authors have come from 59 countries, with the most frequent contributions coming from Italy (120), China (107), the U.S. (97), Japan (53), Germany (29), England (28), and South Korea (23). During the publication period of 2013-2015, the paper that has garnered the highest number of citations (63) is “Epidemiology of esophageal cancer” by Zhang YW et al (2013; 34: 5598-5606). At total of 65 papers during that period reached > 10 citations (data obtained from Web of Science, for citation records up to December 18, 2015). These data objectively indicate that WJG has played a leading role in reporting findings from worldwide research of major diseases of the digestive system.

Sixth, WJG exerts great influence among its authors, and WJG’s articles are highly cited. A total of 15831 articles published in WJG are indexed in SCIE, and the authors come from 109 countries and regions across the globe. Overall, the countries with the highest amounts of authors who have published articles in WJG are China (6389), the U.S. (1546), Japan (1519), Italy (1056), and Korea (840). Since its launch, the paper with the highest number of citations (722) is “Epidemiology of gastric cancer” by Crew et al (2006; 12: 354-362).

Seventh, WJG exerts great influence among its global readers. In its 21 year publication history, the average number of monthly visits by global readers to the WJG official website is 110000, and the average number of monthly visits to WJG via PubMed is 26000. All articles published in WJG are indexed in PubMed Central. The paper that has been most accessed online is “Exploring alternative treatments for Helicobacter pylori infection” by Ayala et al (2014; 20: 1450-1469); the full text of this paper has been downloaded 2020 times.

Eighth, WJG has published many high quality academic articles in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology. Thirteen highly-cited articles published in WJG are included in the list of top papers from Essential Science Indicators, which reports on articles that describe the most cutting-edge research findings; these 13 articles describe research in the gastroenterology and hepatology sub-fields of esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, hepatitis C virus, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Ninth, the primary goal of WJG is to publish insightful commentary articles and high quality research articles in order to provide high quality intellectual and technical insights for practicing gastroenterologists and interested readers worldwide. In this way, WJG is able to promote the development of gastroenterology and hepatology research and the translation of research findings to clinical practice.

Tenth, WJG has unique manuscript sources and uses a unique publishing model. WJG considers both unsolicited manuscripts and invited manuscripts for publication based upon results of peer review. The unsolicited manuscripts, freely submitted by authors from across the globe, are published in as open-access (OA); this OA model uses the standard approach in which the authors pay the publication fee, but the articles are provided in full, without cost to all readers. WJG’s rate of acceptance of unsolicited manuscripts is ~30%. The invited manuscripts are published under the sapphire open-access (SOP) model, in which the authors do not pay any publication fee for article release and the readers do not pay any subscription fee for article access. WJG’s rate of acceptance of invited manuscripts is ~20%. All articles published by WJG’s publisher, BPG, are published under the CC BY - NC 4.0 license, which allows the intellectual property rights of the authors to be protected. The major advantage of OA and SOP models is that once the articles are released in the Web of Science, PubMed and PubMed Central databases, as well as on the WJG website, worldwide readers have immediate free access. This strategy allows for the rapid dissemination of scientific findings among scholars in the field. As a result, OA and SOP articles have more visits and a higher average number of citations than articles published in the traditional non- OA publishing model.

Finally, WJG focuses on the quality, and not the quantity, of published articles. We strongly encourage authors to submit their research findings to WJG from projects supported by important foundations or institutions, in order to maintain the reputation of WJG as one of the most influential academic journals in the world. Authors can have free access to their high resolution online version and to download the full-text electronic version for free to share their published research findings as they see fit. This will not only allow authors to promote their own reputation in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology but also to improve their academic influence worldwide.