Viewpoint: Selecting the 5 most important papers in the first 50 years of the Journal of Range Management

A graduate seminar to select the 5 most important papers published in the f irst 50 years of the Journal of Range Management (JRM), 1948-1997, cultivat ed an appreciation for the development of the discipline of rangeland scien ce and management, and provided some historical perspective to judge the JR M. A review of textbooks, and papers describing early milestones and the us e of citation counting were helpful in developing criteria to discriminate the importance of papers. The greatest disagreement among the 9 participant s focused on the use of citation counts as a criterion: 2 students used onl y counts and 3 students refused to use counts. Eighteen papers received at least 1 vote as a top 5 paper, and 2 plant succession-vegetation monitoring papers were clearly the most popular. The exercise revealed that disconten t with the JRM is not new. Although the JRM now covers a wider variety of t opics, including both reductionist and synthetic works, some students felt that it was less encompassing of multiple values of rangelands and the brea dth of rangeland science than recent texts. The students found that the sel ection of important papers expanded their understanding of the discipline a nd their resolve to publish in the JRM. Ideally, others will be challenged to perform this review for the benefit of students, the discipline, and the JRM.