When citing articles published in journals, is it necessary to mention the impact factor of the journal?

Mentioning the journal's Impact Factor (IF) when citing an article is generally considered unnecessary and often discouraged in academic writing practices. Citing best practices focus on the article's content and facilitating retrieval. The core purpose of a citation is to provide sufficient bibliographic detail (author, title, journal name, volume, issue, page numbers, publication year) to uniquely identify the source and allow readers to locate it. The journal's IF, which reflects the average citation rate of articles published in that journal over previous years, is not a reliable indicator of the specific cited article's quality, significance, or validity. Including it adds no value to the fundamental citation purpose and can misleadingly imply the article's merit is defined solely by the journal's metric, ignoring disciplinary differences in IF ranges and inherent methodological criticisms of the IF itself. Many academic communities and publishers actively advise against its inclusion in references. Focus should remain on accurately citing the source using established formats (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) and evaluating research based on its intrinsic scholarly contribution, relevance to the argument, and methodological rigor, rather than the publication venue's metric. Omitting the IF promotes a shift towards evaluating research based on its content and impact, aligning with the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) principles.