There are more than 8, kinds of periodicals in China, which vary widely in disciplines, organizers, competent departments, quality, services and so on. Although the state administrative department has stated that the current periodicals have never been graded from an administrative point of view, the concept of grading periodicals has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Moreover, it is impossible and unrealistic for more than 8, periodicals to have no level difference. In fact, periodicals have always been graded, which is almost the knowledge of relevant government agencies, periodical organizers and authors, but the identification of periodical grades is more complicated, and there is no unified national standard and graded catalogue. The most traditional classification of periodicals is according to the competent department of periodicals. In 1991, the Measures for the Administration of Science and Technology Journals jointly issued by the State Science and Technology Commission and the Press and Publication Administration divided periodicals into national and local periodicals, and these two classifications gradually evolved into national, provincial, ministerial and prefecture-level periodicals. In the 197s, the theory of core journals began to be introduced into China, and by the 199s, core journals had been widely known in academic circles. At the same time, a variety of large-scale databases related to periodical evaluation began to be established, from which a variety of periodical rankings were obtained. Many scientific research institutions in colleges and universities also studied and formulated them as used core periodicals (or key periodicals, etc.), and relevant government functional departments organized various periodical grade evaluations. The above-mentioned grading evaluation of periodicals, the leaderboards and various periodical tables or awards are essentially grading periodicals. It can be seen that the concept of periodical grading has long been deeply rooted in people's hearts (for example, Nature in Britain and Science in the United States are recognized as first-class academic journals all over the world, and the scientific research award of Zhejiang University Medical College stipulates that academic papers published in Science and Nature are rewarded with 1, yuan each), and the research and practice of periodical grading is becoming more and more abundant and diversified. This is the most traditional method of periodical grading, and it is also the main method still in use at present. According to this classification method, periodicals are divided into national, provincial and ministerial level, and prefecture-level periodicals. Academic periodicals sponsored by scientific research institutes, universities and national first-level societies representing the national scientific research level are generally regarded as national periodicals, and provincial and ministerial level, prefecture-level periodicals and so on.

This classification is simple and easy to confirm; Grading by birth, as long as the competent department does not change the publication, it will enjoy the lifelong level; As long as the competent authorities are at the same level, all kinds of periodicals (academic periodicals, news reports, work guidance and knowledge popularization periodicals) belong to the same level and cannot be distinguished. Therefore, this classification method is only suitable for journals with a certain level and a certain region (such as strict academic journals), and it is not suitable for general use in a large range, otherwise there will be a funny phenomenon of "China Social Sciences" (sponsored by China Academy of Social Sciences) and "China Music Education" (sponsored by the Ministry of Education). Grading by quality is a kind of grading with the most academic value, which is mainly manifested in winning prizes or being selected into a certain catalogue. After the theory of core journals was introduced into China, the information science finally had a more scientific and reasonable new method to replace the traditional administrative level classification. In 1988, following the method of "Journal Citation Report" in Science Citation Index, Lanzhou University selected 1 natural science journals with the highest academic level published in China as the basis, and compiled a citation index card every year, which was called "Chinese Natural Science Citation Index", and selected 14 Chinese core journals of natural science from it. This is the first authoritative and authoritative journal developed by using citations in China. In 199, the Literature and Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences listed 11 kinds of China sci-tech periodicals and 14 kinds of periodicals proposed by Lanzhou University according to the main foreign retrieval tools, and also included the journals of China (excluding Hong Kong and Taiwan) universities listed in the major projects announced by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. After expert review, 286 kinds of sci-tech core periodicals were proposed. In 1991, the research group of "Statistics and Analysis of China Sci-tech Papers" of China Institute of Science and Technology Information re-elected 1,23 kinds of periodicals as the statistics of domestic "academic list". These influential periodical grading are limited to natural science, which shows that on the one hand, the grading of natural science periodicals precedes social science in theory and practice, on the other hand, the periodical quality grading started at the end of 198s still lacks comprehensiveness and systematicness of disciplines.