Citation Metrics Workshop

This section of the guide introduces resources that count citations to articles in scholarly publications.

• Article-level metrics (and impact) are linked to individual researchers and authors (for more information, see the Researcher Impact tab, far right)
• By looking up individual articles, you can see how many times they have been cited; you can also see citation patterns and impact over many years.

Keep in mind:

• Citation counts are provided in a number of indexing and abstracting databases: e.g. an article has been "cited by X (or N) number of  articles". Citation counts typically include only items within that resource, and the data sources may be incomplete. 

• Citations appearing in books are significantly underrepresented in many of these resources.

• Cross-disciplinary comparisons of article impact metrics are not valid because of disciplinary differences in publication and citation patterns.

Web of Science (WoS)

• Citation counts are shown when you find articles by using the basic or advanced search features.
• Cited Reference Searching in WoS finds additional citations by broadening your search to include miskeyed and misspelled citations.
• At the search screen, click the down arrow beside Basic Search, select Cited Reference Search and complete the form. 

Step by Step Instructions (pdf) Scroll to last page.
How to do a Cited Reference Search: Video

Scopus

• Scopus finds relevant research, identifies experts and provides access to reliable data, metrics, and analytical tools. With over 25,100 titles from more than 5,000 international publishers, Scopus delivers a comprehensive overview of the world’s research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social science, and arts and humanities. 

Google Scholar

• Citation counts display below the entry for every article on a result list. Google Scholar is the world's largest "free" academic search engine. Google Scholar sorts results by presenting "most relevant" citations first by using its PageRank algorithm (a measure of article popularity/value). The cited-by feature leads to other scholarly articles. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research.

Find a list of discipline-specific databases on the Research Guide for your topic. Note that these databases count only the citations to a work that occur in the database.  Citations in journals and books not indexed in the database are not incuded.

EBSCO Databases (View a list)

Not all EBSCO databases display citation counts, but many do, including Academic Search Complete and PsycINFO. To see whether an EBSCO database includes citation counts, connect to the database, then look for Cited References at the top or under the More drop-down box at the top of the screen:

Select Cited References and fill in the search boxes.

ProQuest Databases (View a list)

Citation counts appear on the result list and in the full record for each item.
 

Medline via Ovid ("Find citing articles")

PubMedCentral (free online journal articles)

• Citation counts are available for every item in PubMedCentral.
• Select an item on a result list, then look for Cited by similar articles in PMC at right.
   

   

Many databases include a citation alert feature that notifies you each time an article is cited.