Background: Citation analysis can provide an insight into the publishing habits of the research community. Information is available not only on publishing authors and research groups, but also on those who are citing particular pieces of work. The impact factor is an aggregate citation measure, and is used, and misused, in a variety of settings. Objectives: Based on citation data to be published by ISI during June 2008, this study will deconstruct the impact factor of The Cochrane Library, analyzing the characteristics of the publishing and citing authors, and the distribution of citations to those articles. The appropriateness of the impact factor as a measure of average article quality will be discussed, as will the profound effect of cited journal title variations on the overall level of reported article citedness. Methods: Publication and citation data will be downloaded from ISI’s Web of Science, using (a) a general search, and (b) a cited reference search. Data will be imported and analyzed in commonly available software, to examine the differences and similarities between the groups of citing and cited authors, and between the general and cited reference search. Results: As at March 2008, only a tentative prediction of the impact factor of The Cochrane Library can be made. Full data will be available for analysis during June 2008. Conclusions: Previous studies on other journals have demonstrated a highly skewed distribution of citations to articles within the Impact Factor time-frame. Will The Cochrane Library reveal the same signature distribution?