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Research Impact Metrics

Provides an overview of Research Impact Metrics

Citation Counts and Percentiles

Sample Statement:

"My paper '(publication title)' published in 2021 received 59 citations in Scopus, and ranked 95% percentile, which mean this paper's citation performance is higher than 95% of the similar articles published in the same subject and the same year worldwide."

Citation Counts means the total number of times this document has been cited in a database which track citations, like Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar.

Citation Percentile shows how citations received by this document compare with the average for similar documents. For example, 98% percentile means 98% of publications of the same type, from the same category and published in the same year have a lower citation count than this paper.

Finding Citation Counts and Percentile in Scopus

  1. Go to Scopus.
  2. In the search mode Documents, type in the title of the publication.
  3. Open the publication page, Citation Counts and Percentile can be found here.

 

Finding Citation Counts and Percentile in Web of Science

  1. Go to Web of Science.
  2.  Search the title of the publication.
  3. The citation counts can be found on the right-side panel.
  4. Click on the right side, percentile in subject area will be found on the new page.

Using citation counts to measure an article’s impact has several downsides:

  1. Disciplinary Differences: Citation practices vary widely across different academic fields. For example, articles in the life sciences tend to receive more citations than those in the humanities. This makes direct comparisons between fields problematic.

  2. Citation Lag: It can take years for an article to accumulate citations, which means recent publications might appear less impactful simply because they haven’t had enough time to be cited.

  3. Quality vs. Quantity: High citation counts do not necessarily indicate high-quality research. Articles can be frequently cited for negative reasons, such as being controversial or flawed.

  4. Self-Citations: Authors might cite their own work to inflate citation counts artificially.

  5. Publication Type: Different types of publications (e.g., review articles vs. original research) tend to receive different levels of citations, which can affect the perceived impact.

  6. Access and Visibility: Articles published in open-access journals or those with higher visibility tend to receive more citations, which might not necessarily reflect their quality.