ABSTRACTWhen faced with an abundance of articles, readers must weigh the relative importance of various characteristics to select which articles to read. Over 400 researchers in 12 countries responded to a questionnaire that asked them to rank seven article characteristics and rate 16 article profiles. After article topic, the next most highly ranked characteristics were online accessibility and source of article. Conjoint analysis revealed the highest rated profiles to be (i) article written by a top‐tier author, in a top peer‐reviewed journal, available online at no personal cost to the reader; and (ii) article written by a top‐tier author, in a peer‐reviewed journal not in the top tier, available online at no personal cost to the reader. There were significant differences in characteristic rankings by discipline and geographic location.