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Impact Metrics

What is the Article Impact ?

Original illustration: Gerd Altmann, pixabay license

The article impact is measured by the number of times an article has been cited by other publications.

As a researcher, it can be useful to

  • Track the impact of your research
  • Find articles on your research topic by following the articles that cite you
  • Identify the most cited articles
  • Find collaborations with other researchers by following researchers that cite you

Keep in mind:

  • A high volume of citations does not guarantee the quality of an article, as questionable articles are sometimes the most cited
  • Review articles are usually more cited than original research articles
  • Citations take time to accumulate and citation patterns differ from one field to another.
  • Good communication can help you improve the visibility of your research (by increasing your number of citations)
  • Co-publishing can improve your number of citations and your visibility
  • Citations counts are also used by new alternative metrics (altmetrics)

Tools

Tools for citation tracking available at the IHEID or freely available:

Several databases available at the IHEID library such as Anthrosource, IBSS, Web of Science or Sociological Abstracts provide citation counts, depending on where the article is published. Publishers such as Taylor and Francis, Sage and Wiley produce data about citations.

Examples of databases which provide citations counts:

Web of Science:

  • Allows to sort the most cited articles in a field
  • You can create a citation alert

  Google Scholar

Keep in mind:

  • Databases such as Web of Science are verified so there is no double counting of citations. If you use Google Scholar, make sure there is no double counting of citations and verify that every reference is indeed a scientific publication
  • If you mention a number of citations, always mention the source of that number/count
  • Google Scholar does not disclose which sources it uses
  • For other ways to find your citations count, go to the "where to check your h-index" section