what is citation analysis in research

Scholarly Impact and Citation Analysis

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• Google Scholar
• Scopus: Citation Analysis for an Article or an Author
• WOS: Citation Analysis for an Author
• WOS: Finding Citing References for an Article
• Analyzing Journals Using JCR
• Analyzing Journals using Scopus
• Journal Impact Factor: What is it?
• Google Scholar Metrics
• Citation Count for Books

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Citation Analysis

What is citation analysis?

Citation analysis is a way of measuring the relative importance or impact of an author, an article or a publication by counting the number of times that author, article, or publication has been cited by other works.

Why conduct citation analysis?

Citation analysis may be conducted for following purposes:

• To establish the impact that a particular work has had by identifying which other authors based their work upon it or cited it within their own papers.
• To learn more about a field or a topic by identifying seminal works in that area.
• To determine what impact a particular author has had within his/her own discipline and beyond by looking at his/her total number of citations broken down by discipline and by country.
• For promotion and tenure purposes by looking at the quality of sources where a scholar’s work has been published and cited

Sources for Citation Analysis: There are several tools available for citation analysis, some are subscription-based and others are free. Each tool has its strengths and weaknesses and none of them covers the entire universe of scholarly publications. Therefore, it is important to use more than one tool to get a fuller picture of the scholarly impact of an author or a journal. Below is a table highlighting the characteristics of three major citation analysis tools:

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Measuring Your Impact: Impact Factor, Citation Analysis, and other Metrics: Citation Analysis

• Measuring Your Impact

Citation Analysis

Find your h-index.

• Other Metrics/ Altmetrics
• Journal Impact Factor (IF)
• Selecting Publication Venues

About Citation Analysis

What is Citation Analysis?

The process whereby the impact or "quality" of an article is assessed by counting the number of times other authors mention it in their work.

Citation analysis invovles counting the number of times an article is cited by other works to measure the impact of a publicaton or author.  The caviat however, there is no single citation analysis tools that collects all publications and their cited references.  For a thorough analysis of the impact of an author or a publication, one needs to look in multiple databases to find all possible cited references. A number of resources are available at UIC  that identify cited works including: Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and other databases with limited citation data.

Citation Analysis - Why use it?

To find out how much impact a particular article or author has had, by showing which other authors cited the work within their own papers.  The H-Index is one specific method utilizing citation analysis to determine an individuals impact.

Web of Science

Web of Science provides citation counts for articles indexed within it.  It i ndexes over 10,000 journals in the arts, humanities,  sciences, and social sciences.

• Enter the name of the author in the top search box (e.g. Smith JT).  
• Select Author from the drop-down menu on the right.
• To ensure accuracy for popular names, enter Univ Illinois in the middle search box, then select “Address” from the field drop down menu on the right.  (You might have to add the second search box by clicking "add another field" before you enter the address)
• Click on Search
• a list of publications by that author name will appear.   To the right of each citation, the number of times the article has been cited will appear.   Click the number next to "times cited" to view the articles that have cited your article

Scopus provide citation counts for articles indexed within it (limited to article written in 1996 and after).   It indexes o ver 15,000 journals from over 4,000 international publishers across the disciplines.

• Once in Scopus, click on the Author search tab.
• Enter the name of the author in the search box.  If you are using initials for the first and/or middle name, be sure to enter periods after the initials (e.g. Smith J.T.). 
• To ensure accuracy if it is a popular name, you may enter University of Illinois in the affiliation field.  
• If more than one profile appears, click on your profile (or the profile of the person you are examining). 
• Once you click on the author's profile, a list of the publications will appear and to the right of each ctation, the number of times the article has been cited will appear.  
• Click the number to view the articles that have cited your article

 Dimensions (UIC does not subscribe but parts are free to use)

• Indexes over 28000 journals
• Does not display h-index in Dimensions but can calculate or if faculty, look in MyActivities
• Includes Altmetrics score
• Google Scholar

Google Scholar provides citation counts for articles found within Google Scholar.  Depending on the discipline and cited article, it may find more cited references than Web of Science or Scopus because overall, Google Scholar is indexing more journals and more publication types than other databases. Google Scholar is not specific about what is included in its tool but information is available on how Google obtains its content .   Limiting searches to only publications by a specific author name is complicated in Google Scholar.  Using Google Scholar Citations and creating your own profile will make it easy for you to create a list of publications included in Google Scholar.   Using your Google Scholar Citations account, you can see the citation counts for your publications and have GS calculate your h-index.  (You can also search Google Scholar by author name and the title of an article to retrieve citation information for a specific article.)

• Using your google (gmail) account, create a profile of all your articles captured in Google Scholar.  Follow the prompt on the scrren to set up your profile.   Once complete, this will show all the times the articles have been cited by other documents in Google Scholar and your h-index will be provided.  Its your choice whether you make your profile public or private but if you make it public, you can link to it from your own webpages.

Try Harzing's Publish or Perish Tool in order to more selectively examine published works by a specific author.

Databases containing limited citation counts:

• PubMed Central
• Science Direct
• SciFinder Scholar

About the H-index

The h-index is an index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output ( J.E. Hirsch )   The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the scientific productivity and the apparent scientific impact of a scientist. The index is based on the set of the researcher's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other people's publications ( Wikipedia )  A scientist has index h if h of [his/her] Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np − h) papers have at most h citations each.

Find your h-index at:

Below are instructions for obtaining your h-index from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar.

Web of Science provides citation counts for articles indexed within it.  It indexes over 12,000 journals in the arts, humanities,  sciences, and social sciences.  To find an author's h-index in WOS:

• To ensure accuracy for popular names, add an additional search box and enter "Univ Illinois" and then select “Address” from the field drop down menu on the right.
• Click on Citation Report on the right hand corner of the results page.  The H-index is on the right of the screen.
• If more than one profile appears, click on your profile (or the profile of the person you are examining).  Under the Research section, you will see the h-index listed.
• If you have worked at more than one place, your name may appear twice with 2 separate h-index ratings.  Select the check box next to each relevent profile, and click show documents.

  Google Scholar

• Using your google (gmail) account, create a profile of all your articles captured in Google Scholar.  Follow the prompt on the screen to set up your profile.   Once complete, this will show all the times the articles have been cited by other documents in Google Scholar and your h-index will be provided.  Its your choice whether you make your profile public or private but if you make it public, you can link to it from your own webpages.
• See  Albert Einstein's
• Harzing’s Publish or Perish (POP) 
• Publish or Perish Searches Google Scholar.  After searching by your name, deselect from the list of articles retrieved those that you did not author.  Your h-index will appear at the top of the tool.  Note:This tool must be downloaded to use
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Citation Analysis

Citation analysis: terms to know, limits to citation analysis.

• Citation Analysis Tools
• Additional Resources
• Alternative Metrics

Citation analysis: A wide-ranging area of bibliometrics that studies the citations to and from documents.   Citation analysis applies various techniques such as citation counts that can help establish scholarship influence and patterns. Unlike common database searching by Author or Subject, citation searching tracks where works (articles, books, conference proceedings, etc) have been cited by other authors.

Citation count/ citation rate/ citation frequency: often refers to the number of citations an author, document, or journal has received during a certain period of time. If expressed as a ratio, especially for a group of documents published by a particular journal, citation rate becomes equivalent to impact factor. 

Impact factor : A measure of the importance or influence of a group of documents. Speaking imprecisely, impact factor is the number of citations received by an average document in the group.

Journal Impact Factor: The number of cited articles in a particular journal may be used to demonstrate the relative importance of that journal within a discipline or specialty area. This "journal impact factor" is tracked by InCites, which is associated with Web of Science and is proprietary. Other measures (e.g. the h-index) can also be used to evaluate the impact that a journal has in its field. Scopus and SciMago compete with InCites with a similar metric called the SJR.

Eugene Garfield, the origin of the idea of an impact factor in 1955, has authored an article that explains its history. Garfield E. The History and Meaning of the Journal Impact Factor. JAMA. 2006;295(1):90-93. doi:10.1001/jama.295.1.90.

Counting the number of times a publication has been cited is attractive because it is concrete data. However, citation analysis tools have extensive limitations discussed below.  Results should therefore be used in conjunction with other indicators of quality when presented in support of a case for promotion and tenure.

Keep the following caveats in mind when evaluating research quality using citation indicators:

• No citation database is all inclusive. Citation databases do not track citations for every journal. Journals from some fields may be poorly represented and citation results will reflect this disparity between fields.
• Some disciplines have less extensive citation activity than others. Most research work in scientific fields attracts far more citations than does research in many humanities fields.
• Recent research may not be cited. The time lag or immediacy factor varies significantly in different fields. Some scientific fields experience rapid citation at the research front, while others take years for research to be noticed.
• Citation rates can be influenced by such factors as few authors citing one another or by an author's high rates of self-citation. Poor quality papers may have a high citation count because they are cited while being criticized or refuted. 
• Entries in citation databases may not be standard or follow a consistent name-authority scheme. Errors made by citing authors or by indexers may make it difficult to retrieve complete citation counts.
• Common authors' name forms are very difficult to separate from other similar names (especially in citation indexes that rely on initials instead of full names). Advances in indexing quality, however, have improved the identification of authors' identities. Searching by title of a work as opposed to author name is a sure way of avoiding this problem.
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Research Impact Metrics: Citation Analysis

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• Google Journal Metrics
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• Other Factors to Consider When Choosing a Journal
• Finding Journal Acceptance Rates
• Text/Data Mining for Citation Indexes

Library Contact

Defining Citation Analysis

What is it .

Citation analysis is the study of the impact and assumed quality of an article, an author, or an institution based on the number of times works and/or authors have been cited by others. 

Why use it?

• To find out how much impact a particular article has had by showing which authors based some work upon it or cited it as an example within their own papers. 
• To find out more about a field or topic; i.e. by reading the papers that cite a seminal work in that area. 
• To determine how much impact a particular author has had by looking at the number of times his/her work has been cited by others. 

Comparing Tools for Citation Analysis

Comparing citation analysis sources.

Here is a quick summary of what to expect from the three best known citation analysis tools.

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10 Citation Analysis

I.   Objectives

•      What is citation analysis?

•      Tools for citation analysis;

•      Classification of citations according to their nature and context;

•      Reasons for citations;

•      Bibliographic coupling and co-citations; and

•      Applications of citation analysis and their limitations.

II. Learning Outcome

At the end of this module you have gained knowledge in citation analysis, including the merits and demerits of citation data. History of citation studies was also covered. You have also learnt the methodology of citation analysis.

III. Module Structure

1.  Introduction

2.  Citation Inde

3.  Nature of citations

4.  Classification of citations

5.  Reasons for citations

6.  Bibliographic coupling

7.  Co-citation

8.  Applications

9.  Limitations

10.  Summary

11.  References

1. Introduction

Citation analysis is the major thrust area of bibliometric research. It deals with the analysis of the bibliographic references which generally appear at the end of the scientific communication. When an author cites a paper (say X) in his paper (say Y), then X is called the cited paper and Y is the citing paper. Thus, citation analysis presents a connection between cited and citing documents. Analysis of cited and citing papers can provide valuable information about the existing and emerging knowledge on a subject. The more an article is cited, the more significant becomes the paper. Citation analysis can be used to study the influence of the research output of a country on world science. Science policy makers these days are using citation analysis to identify most significant papers or authors or institutions in a discipline. Citation counts help a research administrator to assess the impact of the research output of each individual scientist of his organization, but also that of his organization as a whole. Citation analysis helps to identify those earlier researchers whose concepts, methods, apparatus, etc. were used by the authors in the preparation of his article.

Citations are very field dependent and the number of citations per paper varies from one discipline to another. Citations are high in the field of biomedical sciences. A relatively small, isolated field will attract fewer citations than either a more general field or research within a narrow field that has a wider focus of interest. A paper published in an obscure journal, or publication with small readership usually has a low citation rate. About 80% of the references appended in a paper are to journal articles. Review journals have relatively higher citation rate, because most review papers are long, contain many references, and are cited quite heavily; however, they are not necessarily very different in citations per page when differences are made for length of the paper. Citation analysis also tells about what an author is recognized for (past work, methods, concepts or reviews). Authors of highly cited papers constitute the elite or leading scientists of the specialty. Citation analysis involves counting of the number of citations to a particular paper for a period of years after its publication. The number of years for which the citations are counted is known as the citation window which may vary from one field to another.

2. Citation Index

The practice of citation analysis received a considerable stimulus with the evolution of Science Citation Index (SCI) developed by Eugene Garfield and brought out by Institute of Scientific Information (now Thomson Reuters), USA. Till recently, it was the only database available for citation analysis. However, for the past few years researchers have started using SCOPUS database of the Elsevier for the purpose of citation analysis. Both these database are multidisciplinary international databases. SCI has grown from 600 journals in 1964 to more than 10,000 scientific and technical  journals in most science disciplines now. Thomson Reuters also publishes Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). SCOPUS originated in the year 2004 and claims to index about 15000 periodicals in science, technology and social sciences. International conferences are also indexed by these two databases. Both these indexes are now available online. Besides, the availability of these two commercial databases for citation analysis, Google Scholar is also being used to track the citations of individual authors, which is freely available on the Web.

A citation index is an ordered list of cited articles each of which is accompanied by a list of citing articles. The citing article is identified by a source citation, the cited article by a reference citation. The index is arranged by reference citations. Arrangement by author is favoured in the citation index. Citation indexes have several problems like the cost, various spellings of author names, authors with the same name, incorrect citing information, and other human errors. However, advantages outweigh disadvantages. SCI was also criticized for having national bias in its coverage of journals as the number of journals originated from developing countries and countries publishing in language other than English were less covered. However, in recent years this problem has been solved to a great extent by Thomson Reuters. SCOPUS took note of these problems before its launch and did not face such criticism.

3. Nature of citations

Based on the nature as who is the citer, citations have been classified into three categories (Folly et al 1981). These are:

• Self citations: Self citation may be said to occur when at least one of the authors of a cited document is the same person as one of the authors of the citing document. The author self citation rate of an individual may be calculated by dividing the number of self citations by the total number of all citations made by the individual. Self citation may artificially inflate citation rate;
• Co-operational citations: The cited author under study and one citing author were co-authors prior to the publication of cited paper and criterion (i) does not hold; and
• Independent citations: No detectable relations between cited and citing author is observed.

On the basis of citation context analysis, citations have been classified into four classes (Murugesan and Moravcsik 1978). These are as follows:

i.  Conceptual vs. Operational (theory vs. method): If a concept or theory of the cited paper is used directly or indirectly in the citing paper in order to lay foundation to build on it or to contribute to the citing paper, then the citation is conceptual one. In contrast, the definition of an operational reference involves the situation when a concept or theory is referred to as a tool to substantiate the authors claim (e.g. the author may compare his results based on his theory with the result of another theory) or to indicate alternative  approaches. In addition, a reference is also called operational when it borrows mathematical or physical techniques, results, references, or conclusions from the cited paper.

ii.  Organic vs. Perfunctory (essential vs. non essential): “Organic” references are those from which concepts or theories are taken to lay the foundations of the citing paper, or papers from which certain results (including numerical ones) are taken to develop the ideas in the citing paper, or papers which help to better understand certain concepts in the citing paper. In contrast “perfunctory” references are those which describe alternative approaches which are not utilized in the citing paper, references which are used to compare certain results or conclusions, references which are used to indicate the fact that a certain method employed is routine in the literature, and references which merely contribute to the chronological context of the citing paper. In short, perfunctory citations are not really necessary for the development of the citing paper.

iii.  Evolutionary vs. Juxtapositional (development of idea vs. contrasting idea): A reference is called evolutionary if it provides a concept or theory to build on, or a mathematical technique to use, or results of an analysis which is used in the development of the citing paper. In other words, evolutionary references deal with material which contributes directly to the logical development of the subject of the citing paper. In contrast, a reference is called juxtapositional, if it refers to alternative approaches, gives mere references to works using the same general approach but which have branched off so that they do not contribute to the development of the citing paper, refers to other analysis used in the citing paper only to make comparisons, refers to other works which may help to clarify some ideas but do not contribute to the development of the citing paper, or refer to a paper only for references given in the later.

iv.  Confirmative vs. Negational (supports findings vs. opposes findings): A reference is confirmative if the author of the citing paper considers the paper referred to as correct. Almost all evolutionary papers are also confirmative. In contrast, a negational reference describes the situation when the author of the citing paper is not certain about the correctness of the cited paper. There are two types of negational citations. In the first type the author of the citing paper claims that the cited paper is incorrect. In the other type of negational citation the author of the citing paper disputes the cited paper but cannot come to a definite conclusion, because the issue is still being tested experimentally or theoretically.

5. Reasons for citations

Besides scientific merit v arious other factors influence the choice of references an author cites. It may be familiarity with particular papers or prominence of an author in a field, its availability or language, controversiality of the topic, reprint dissemination, and coverage by secondary services etc. Papers more than 5 years old are cited less frequently, because these are superseded by books or reviews. Only a classic paper is cited when it is old. A well known established author is more frequently cited than a new researcher in the field. The number of citations is influenced by the number of people interested in a field and the number of people who have previously published in the field. Specific reasons for citations are as follows (Weinstock 1971)

•      Paying homage to pioneers;

•      Giving credit for related work;

•      Identifying methodology, equipment etc.;

•      Providing background reading;

•      Correcting one’s own work;

•      Correcting the work of others;

•      Criticizing previous work;

•      Substantiating claims;

•      Alerting researchers to forthcoming work;

•      Providing leads to poorly disseminated, poorly indexed, or uncited work;

•      Authenticating data and classes of fact – physical constants etc.;

•      Identifying original publications in which the idea or concept was discussed;

•      Identifying original publications or other work describing an eponymous concept or term;

•      Disclaiming work or ideas of others; and

•      Disputing priority claims of others.

Bibliographic citations in scientific papers have been used by a variety of researchers to establish relationship among documents. Two important measures based on this concept which have received considerable attention in the literature are bibliographic coupling suggested by (Kessler 1963) and co-citation suggested by (Small 1973). Bibliographic coupling deals with sharing of one or more references by two documents. Two citing documents are said to be bibliographically coupled if they cite the same publication(s). The strength of the coupling between citing documents depends upon the total number of citations that they have in common. If the number of common reference is one, then the coupling strength is one. If there are two common references, then the coupling strength is two. In other words, the more the number of common references, the more the coupling strength of the papers. For example, let us consider two documents I and II. Document I cites document A, B, C, D; and document II cites C, D, E, and F. Hence, documents I and II are bibliographically coupled; because they both side C and D, and the coupling strength is two. Bibliographic coupling is a fixed and permanent relation and does not change with time.

7. Co-citation

It is the frequency with which two items of earlier literature are cited together by the later literature. The number of times that papers are cited together by a new or later document gives the strength of co-citation. The more the frequency of occurrence together, the stronger is the relationship between the two. Co-citation patterns change as the interests and intellectual patterns of the field change with time. Co-citation can be used to map out in detail the relationship between key ideas. It can also be used to depict a literature specialty core or cluster. Co-citation provides a tool for monitoring the development for scientific fields, and for assessing the degree of interrelationship among specialties. Co-citation helps in locating network of frequently cited papers. Co-citation patterns are found to differ significantly from bibliographic coupling patterns. Like document co-citations, these can also be developed for authors and journals.

8. Applications

Citation analysis has number of applications. These have been described below.

• Finding out relative use of different types of documents: Citation analysis can be used to identify relative use of different kind of documents such as books, periodicals, technical reports, conference proceedings, and theses etc. For instance, in several of the studies reported in literature, it has been observed that citations to articles in journals constitute a major proportion of total cited items among all types of literature sources. Similarly, one can also analyze and identify the language of the cited papers.
• To trace the historical development of a field: Citation studies have been used for creating historical descriptions for scientific fields. Employing network of scholarly communications one can establish the history of the field.
• To guide a reader: Each citation is a message from the author of a document to his readers. By reading the cited document, the reader can obtain more information on a point or check the authenticity of a particular view, finding or method etc.
• For compilation of reading lists or bibliographies: Citations are an excellent tool for the compilation of reading lists or bibliographies, especially in an emerging field of knowledge or in subjects where areas are not clearly demarcated and the literature is scattered. In such fields, perhaps citations are  the only source of information which may be of help for compiling reading lists or bibliographies. The quality of such a list would be excellent as references provided in it have been evaluated by the researchers, who are expert of the discipline.
• For preparing ranked list of journals: Based on the assumption that citations are indicative of the literature use patterns, these provide methodology to rank scientific journals according to their relative degree of importance. Librarians are using it as an authentic tool for streamlining their serials acquisition policy by adding and discarding the most and less cited journals respectively. It also helps the librarian in other aspects of library management like binding policy and locating most used periodicals at a place convenient to the readers.
• Finding useful life of documents: Material acquired in the library becomes out-of-date with the passage of time. This is known as obsolescence of the published material i.e. slow reduction in the use of the published material. Analysis of citations by age of the cited documents can indicate the useful life of documents especially earlier volumes of periodicals. This is based on the assumption that a document would be cited if it is used. Thus, citation analysis can be used to decide the obsolescence rate of documents in different subjects.
• Finding out relatedness and interdependence of subjects: Citation analysis can act as an important tool in establishing important clues about the relatedness and interdependence of one field on another field by identifying how the journals of one field cite the journals of other fields.
• To study the scatter of literature: Citation analysis helps in identifying how the literature of one discipline is scattered in the journals of other disciplines. How often the literature related to technology or applied science cite the literature of basic sciences or vice-versa. The technique can also be used to identify the countries and impact factor of journals which are being cited in the literature.
• Citation analysis as a tool in research evaluation: Citation analysis is an important tool in evaluative bibliometrics. Citation counts may be used directly as a measure of utilization or influence of a single publication or all publications of an individual, a grant contract, department, university, funding agency, or country. This is based on comparison of citation counts of one research group to number of citations received by similar documents by the other research group. It is then assumed that the document with higher relative numbers of citation counts have more impact than those with lower citation counts. During the last two decades several studies have been published in the international journal Scientometrics on the citation analysis of scientific research institutions, research groups and individual scientists.

9. Limitations

Citation analysis has been criticized on certain grounds. Some researchers point out that all the references appended by the author in the paper might have not been consulted by him. He has cited these references from another paper on a similar subject. This makes citation data unreliable to some extent. Another pitfall of citation counting arises due to negative citations. Authors of scientific papers often cite papers of others with a view to contradict claims, or findings of their predecessors because of incorrect results drawn by them in their publications. These citations have a negative value and thus should get negative weight instead of positive weight in citation analysis. Also methodological papers are among highly cited papers.

10. Summary

Citation analysis is the hot area of bibliometric research and it received a considerable stimulus with the evolution of Science Citation Index (SCI). Citation analysis involves counting of the number of citations to a particular paper for a period of years after its publication. It can provide valuable information about the existing and emerging knowledge on a subject and the influence of the research output of a country on world science. Citation counts help a research administrator to assess the impact of the research output of each individual scientist of the organization as well as the organization as a whole. It helps to identify those earlier researchers whose concepts, methods, apparatus, etc. were used by the authors in the preparation of his article. Citations are very field dependent and the number of citations per paper varies from one discipline to another. Review journals have relatively higher citation rate. Authors of highly cited papers constitute the elite or leading scientists of the specialty.

Based on the nature as who is the citer, citations have been classified as self citations, co-operational citations and independent citations. On the basis of citation context analysis these are classified as conceptual vs. operational (theory vs. method) organic vs. perfunctory (essential vs. non essential), evolutionary vs. juxtapositional (development of idea vs. contrasting idea) and confirmative vs. negational (supports findings vs. opposes findings). Besides scientific merit various other factors influence the choice of references an author cites. Two important concepts that have been developed on the basis of citation analysis are bibliographic coupling and co-citation. Citation analysis have extensively been used to find out relative use of different types of documents, historical development of a field, for compilation of reading lists or bibliographies, preparing ranked list of journals, studying obsolescence of literature, relatedness and interdependence of subjects, scatter of literature and most widely in research evaluation.

11. References

• Folly, G.; Haytman, B., Nagy, J.I. and Ruff, I. (1981), Some methodological problems in ranking scientists by citation analysis, Scientometrics, 2: 135-147
• Kessler, M.M. (1963) Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers, American Documentation, 14: 10-25
• Murugesan, P. and Moravcsik, M.J. (1978) Variation of the nature of citation measures with journals and scientific specialties, J. of the American society for Information Science, 29: 141-147
• Small, H.G. (1973) Co-citation in the scientific literature: A new measure of the relationship between two documents, Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 24: 265-269
• Weinstock, M. (1971), Citation Indexes (i n) Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Marcel Dekker, New York, 5: 16-40.

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Citation Analysis: What is Citation Analysis?

• What is Citation Analysis?
• Journal Ranking

What is Citation Analysis and Why Do It?

"In part due to its quantifiable nature and to technological advances that permit better tracking of citations within books and journal articles, the number of times a particular article or publication is cited has become a common method of assessing the article’s impact on furthering knowledge in the field.  Additionally, researchers use citation rates as a means of identifying which among a long list of articles may be the most useful to their research, as well as to map the development of an idea over time.  In many cases, citation rates for faculty research play a role in university rankings."    Source:  AASCB website

From Online Databases: The Power of Citation Searching

Carol Tenopir

"The power of citation searching lies in the capacity to take a seminal article and uncover who the author was influenced by (who was cited) and go forward in time to discover how that seminal research affected newer works (who is citing it). ISI (a Thomson business, formerly Institute for Scientific Information) has allowed such techniques to be used by serious searchers for years by providing the means of searching for known articles or authors in the "cited reference" field of ISI's citation indexes."...

Anyone who works in academia is familiar with another common use: professors who want to measure the impact of their work want to know how many (and which) researchers are referring to their articles, knowledge of which may bear on promotion and tenure decisions.

Impact, as measured by number of cites, is also extended to journals. (ISI Journal Citation Reports show which journals receive the most citations on the average per article, and, rightly or wrongly, authors in some countries are paid bonuses for publishing in high-impact journals.) For academic disciplines, ISI Essential Science Indicators provides rankings of nations, individuals, or journals or universities themselves (universities are ranked according to the collective citations to their faculties).

ISI's Rodney Yancey, manager of corporate communications, also suggests that researchers use citation searching to "track the work of a research colleague or noted authority; verify the accuracy of cited references; identify the sources of information that competitors worldwide are consulting for their research; and construct an objective history of a field of study, significant invention or discovery."

He further explains that citation indexing "exploits the formal linkages between papers established by the authors themselves. Citation searching offers the unique capability of finding new, unknown information, based on older, known information. Going forward in time, a user can take a seminal paper and discover what influenced that work and then trace that idea forward to see its impact."

Tools for Analysis

• Publish or Perish Publish or Perish is a software program that retrieves and analyzes academic citations. It uses Google Scholar to obtain the raw citations, then analyzes them. more... less... Total number of papers Total number of citations Average number of citations per paper Average number of citations per author Average number of papers per author Average number of citations per year Hirsch's h-index and related parameters Egghe's g-index The contemporary h-index The age-weighted citation rate Two variations of individual h-indices An analysis of the number of authors per paper.
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Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis : About This Guide

• Journal Metrics
• Author Metrics
• Article Metrics
• Alternative Metrics
• Further Support and Reading

Your Steenbock Librarians

What are bibliometrics and why are they important?

What are bibliometrics?

Data from citation indexes can be analyzed to determine the popularity and impact of specific articles, authors, and publications.

Why are they important?

Using citation analysis to gauge the importance of one's work, for example, is a significant part of the tenure  re view process. Information scientists also use citation analysis to quantitatively assess the core journal titles and watershed publications in particular disciplines; interrelationships between authors from different institutions and schools of thought; and related data about the sociology of academia.

How do bibliometrics affect me as an author?

Hiring, advancment, tenure:

Author metrics, such as H-index, give you a way to measure the impact of your research. For many jobs in science academia, author metrics are used to screen applicants, and as criteria for promotion.

Altmetrics - measuring impact via social media - can help you get immediate feedback on the effect your research is having on the scientific community.

Grant applications:

Citation metrics can affect funding for you, for your department, and even for your university. Funding agencies are increasingly requiring evidence of publishing impact.

Locating journals to publish in:

Journal metrics can help you decide which journal to publish in. Selecting the right journal can help improve your author metrics - your paper may receive more citations if you are published in a journal with a high impact factor.  

How do bibliometrics affect me as a researcher?

Find articles on your topic:

"Cited By" features offered in Web of Science and Google Scholar can help you discover newly published research being done on your topic.

Identify seminal research:

Knowing how many times a paper has been cited can help you evaluate the importance of that paper. In additon to tools like Web of Science and Google Scholar, altmetrics is emerging as a way to evaluate the online social impact that an article or author is having.

Locating journals to read:

Journal impact factor tools like Journal Citation Report can help you identify leading journals in a field.

Things to keep in mind

• Being highly cited does not make an article credible. Some articles are highly cited because the research they are presenting is being questioned.
• Review articles tend to be more highly cited than primary research articles.
• Just because an article is not cited does not mean it is not widely read.
• Citations take time to accrue.
• Self citation can affect metrics.
• Career length can also affect metrics.
• Citation comparisons are only meaningful if comparing like with like - researchers in the same field of research and at similar career stages.
• Next: Journal Metrics >>
• Last Updated: Mar 10, 2023 2:30 PM
• URL: https://researchguides.library.wisc.edu/bibliometrics

Research Metrics: Measuring the Influence and Impact of Research

In this guide..., responsible use of citation metrics, leiden manifesto, what is citation analysis...and why is it important, related guides.

• Author Influence & Impact
• Article Influence & Impact
• Journal Impact & Ranking
• Finding Metrics
• Maximizing Influence & Impact
• Alternative Metrics

In this Guide, you will find...

• How to locate impact factors for individual journals using tools such as Journal Citation Reports (JCR)
• How to conduct citation analysis by author and by article
• New and alternative ways to measure influence and impact of research
• Information on traditional and alternative forms of peer review
• The Metric Tide Report (2015) Wilsdon, J., et al. (2015). The Metric Tide: Report of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4929.1363
• The Metrics Toolkit: Helping you navigate the research metrics landscape. https://www.metrics-toolkit.org/
• DORA San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (2012) https://sfdora.org/  
• Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics (2015) http://www.leidenmanifesto.org/

The Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics from Diana Hicks on Vimeo .

What is Citation Analysis?

Citation analysis is the study of the quantitative data derived from the use of citations (e.g. bibliographies, works cited, reference pages in books, articles or other publications) as a means of determining the scholarly impact or influence and assumed quality of a journal, an indvidual article, and an individual author/researcher. Citation analysis can be as simple as counting the number of times a person or article has been cited by others, a ratio of their citations to their output, or some other mathematical computation that relates their citation counts to other measures. There are multiple tools and resources that can be utilized for conducting citation analysis. This guide will explore many of these tools and resources as a means of assisting authors, reviewers, and others in making their quantitative and qualitiative assessments.

Importance of Citation Analysis

• Tenure/Promotion
• Document and quantify research impact
• Justify future requests for funding
• Quantify return on research investment
• Discover how research findings are being used
• Discover meaningful health outcomes

Outcomes of Research Impact (What is Measured by Citation Analysis)

• Contribution to the knowledge base
• Change in public law or policy
• Change in understanding of a disease, disorder or condition
• Change in practice
• Change in community health
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Research Impact, Citation Analysis & Altmetrics

• Citation Analysis Tools & Instructions
• 1. Web of Science
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Citation Counts

This section introduces the souces available to the UC community for creating citation counts and conducting citation analysis and explains their coverage and method of searching.

Click on any of the source options below or the drop down menu above to navigate to the desired resource:

Web of Science is THE original citation research source and, along with  Google Scholar , the most interdisciplinary and most comprehensive citation resource available to UC researchers.

• Find the Citation Count for a Publication
• Determine What Journal Articles Have Cited a Publication
• Create a Citation Map for a Journal Article
• Eliminate Self-Citations from a Citation Count
• Get a Citation Analysis Report for an Author
• Get a Citation Analysis Report for a Department or Research Center
• Determine the Most Highly Cited Publications for an Author
• Determine the Most Highly Cited Articles for a Journal
• Set Up a Citation Alert for a Journal Article

Scopus is another resource frequently used for citation analysis and journal ranking statistics. The Scopus claims to be the "largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research."

• Get the Citation Count for a Specific Author

Google Scholar is an interdisciplinary source of citation research but heavily skewed to the sciences and unpredictable in its coverage.

• Citation Searching in Google Scholar
• Google Scholar Citation Counter
• Publish or Perish (PoP)
• CIDS (Citation Impact Discerning Self-citation)
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Bibliometrics & Citation Analysis

How can you measure the quality of a research paper? More importantly, how can you determine whether your research is making an impact and is considered important? An objective way is through citation analysis.

Citation analyses can be grouped according to some broad types based on who/what is being evaluated ( Source ).

• Ranking Journals

Ranking Researchers

• Ranking Articles
• Ranking Universities & Countries

Terms & Definitions

In scholarly and scientific publishing, altmetrics are non-traditional metrics proposed as an alternative to more traditional citation impacts metrics, such as impact factor and h-index. The term altmetrics was proposed in 2010, as a generalization of article-level metrics, and has its roots in the #altmetrics hashtag. ( Source )

Bibliometrics

Bibliometrics is a statistical analysis of written publications, such as books or articles. Bibliometric methods are frequently used in the field of library and information science, including scientometrics. For instance, bibliometrics is used to provide quantitative analysis of academic literature. ( Source )

Citation analysis

Citation analysis is the examination of the frequency, patterns, and graphs of citations in articles and books. It uses citations in scholarly works to establish links to other works or other researchers . Citation analysis is one of the most widely used methods of bibliometrics.

Citation Impact

Citation impact quantifies the citation usage of scholarly works. It is a result of citation analysis or bibliometrics. Among the measures that have emerged from citation analysis are the citation counts for an individual article, an author, and an academic journal. ( Source ) 

Citation impact: Article level

One of the most basic citation metrics is how often an article was cited in other articles, books, or other sources (such as theses). Citation rates are heavily dependent on the discipline and the number of people working in that area ( Source )

Citation impact: Journal ranking

Journal ranking is widely used in academic circles in the evaluation of an academic journal's impact and quality. Journal rankings are intended to reflect the place of a journal within its field, the relative difficulty of being published in that journal, and the prestige associated with it. ( Source ). The basic journal metric is the average citation count for the articles in a journal; other metrics include ( Source ):

• Impact factor – Reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals.
• h-index – Usually used as a measure of scientific productivity and the scientific impact of an individual scientist, but can also be used to rank journals. 
• SCImago Journal Rank – A measure of the scientific influence of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where such citations come from.

Research Output

Research output is defined as textual output where research is understood as an original, systematic investigation undertaken in order to gain new knowledge and understanding. Peer evaluation of the research is a fundamental prerequisite of all recognised output and is the mechanism of ensuring and thus enhancing quality. (Policy on Research Output)

Using citation analysis to measure research impact

The landscape of science and research is rapidly evolving. Gone are the days when all members of a university department would celebrate the successful publication of a colleague’s paper. 1 Earlier, scientists would simply consider the number of papers they had published as a measure of their academic standing. Today, the focus is increasingly shifting from whether a researcher has published a paper to where he/she has published it and the impact that piece of research has on the scientific community and the world at large. 2 How can you measure the quality of a research paper? More importantly, how can you determine whether your research is making an impact and is considered important? An objective way is through citation analysis.

Why count citations in the first place? The list of references directing readers to prior relevant research is considered a fundamental part of any research paper. 3 A reference or citation is a form of acknowledgment that one research paper gives to another. Research is additive—scientists build on past work to discover new knowledge. To identify gaps in existing research and choose a research topic, researchers read the relevant published research and use this existing material as a foundation for arguments made in their own research papers.

11 reasons to cite previous work

• To direct readers to an authentic source of relevant information
• To help other researchers trace the genealogy of your ideas
• To acknowledge pioneers and peers
• To direct readers to previously used methods, and equipment
• To criticize or correct previous work
• To substantiate your claims and arguments with evidence
• To show that you have considered various opinions in framing your arguments
• To highlight the originality of your work in the context of previous work
• To guide other researchers in their work
• To build your credibility as an author
• Finally, because not citing sources can amount to plagiarism 4

What are the various citation-based metrics?

Citation analyses can be grouped according to some broad types based on who/what is being evaluated.

• Ranking journals : Journals are ranked by counting the number of times their papers are cited in other journals. Journal-level metrics are generally meant to serve as an indicator of journal prestige. The most well known of these is the journal impact factor, from Journal Citation Reports ® (a product of Thomson Reuters). The journal impact factor is calculated as the average number of citations all articles in a journal receive over a specific period of time. 5
• Ranking researchers : Various citation metrics are now used for this purpose. Researchers are ranked by counting the number of times their individual papers are cited in other published studies. These metrics are also used to evaluate researchers for hiring, tenure, and grant decisions. A researcher-level metric that is gaining popularity is the h index, 6 which is calculated by considering a combination of the number of papers published by a researcher and the number of citations these papers have received.
• Ranking articles : Article-level citation counts may provide an accurate evaluation of the quality and impact of a specific piece of work, regardless of the author. Unfortunately though, such metrics are rarely considered because obtaining these data is tedious and time-consuming. 7
• Ranking universities and countries : There are databases that rank universities and countries by considering their overall research output through criteria such as citable documents, citations per document, and total citations. These metrics help determine which universities and countries have the most and/or best scientific output. For example, Scimago Research Group ( http://www.scimago.es/ ) releases annual reports of institution- and country-wise rankings.

How can citation analysis help you?

Researchers today are faced with increasing pressure to get published. Academic departments are expected to meet specific levels of publication output. Clearly, there is a lot at stake in the assessment of research quality for both individuals and institutions. Given this, governments, funding agencies, and tenure and promotion committees are looking toward simple and objective methods to assess increasing research volumes in the least possible time. To this end, they are turning more and more to citation analysis for objective parameters of impact assessment.

Pitfalls of citation analysis

When using citation analysis, it is important to bear in mind some of its limitations 3,7 :

• It overlooks the disparity in discipline-wise citation rates, that is, the fact that citation patterns differ among disciplines and over time.
• It ignores the fact that certain manuscript types such as letters and case reports offer inadequate scope for citation and typically have short reference lists. The sentiment of the citation is not considered; that is a negative citation (one used to refute a prior claim) is given as much merit as a positive citation (one used to further the claim being made). So even a paper that has been cited simply to discredit it can work to the author’s advantage in citation analysis.
• It does not account for author contribution on papers with multiple authors: such citations are as meritorious as those to single-author papers. Citation analysis attributes equal importance to all authors of a paper, regardless of their individual contribution.

Thus, sole reliance on citation data provides an incomplete understanding of research. Although citation analysis may be simple to apply, it should be used with caution to avoid it coming under disrepute through uncritical use. 3 Ideally, citation analysis should be performed to supplement, not replace, a robust system of expert review to determine the actual quality and impact of published research. 8

Future of citation analysis

Given the shift to online interfaces by more and more journals and repositories, digital information is now available at a few clicks. With the advent of linking tools and digital archives of research papers, scientific literature is more easily retrievable than ever before. Therefore, it is only to be expected that the population of researchers turning to citation data will continue to grow. In such a scenario, researchers cannot afford to undermine the importance of citation analysis.

So next time you are preparing for a promotion or applying for a new position, consider using citation analysis as a means to bolster your eligibility. Use the citation count feature offered by online databases like Web of Science to compile your citation data and employ multiple citation metrics to highlight your research output.

Bibliography

• Dodson MV (2008). Research paper citation record keeping: It is not for wimps. Journal of Animal Science, 86: 2795-2796.
• Thomson Reuters. History of citation indexing. Essay in Free Scientific Resources. [ http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/history_of_citation_indexing/]
• Smith L (1981). Citation analysis. Library Trends, 30: 83-106.
• Garfield E. Citation indexing-Its Theory and Application in Science, Technology, and Humanities. New York: Wiley, 1979.
• Garfield E (2006). The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 295: 90-93.
• Hirsch JE (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 102: 16569-16573.
• Neylon C and Wu S (2009). Article-level metrics and the evolution of scientific impact. PLoS Biology, 7: 1-6.
• Moed HF (2007) The future of research evaluation rests with an intelligent combination of advanced metrics and transparent peer review. Science and Public Policy, 34: 575-583.

Various citation metrics are now used for this purpose. Researchers are ranked by counting the number of times their individual papers are cited in other published studies . These metrics are also used to evaluate researchers for hiring, tenure, and grant decisions. A researcher-level metric that is gaining popularity is the h index , which is calculated by considering a combination of the number of papers published by a researcher and the number of citations these papers have received. ( Source ) 

The following resources can help researchers manage their careers through citation counts and the h-index.   

Scopus is a subscription database known primarily as an alternative to Web of Knowledge, as it offers a similar article, author, and journal-level metrics, but uses slightly different algorithms to calculate them. Metrics include standard options such as times cited and h-index, as well as original offerings like SJR and SNIP from SCImago. Scopus recently launched “Altmetric for Scopus,” a third party application that runs within the sidebar of Scopus pages to track mentions of papers across social media sites, science blogs, media outlets, and reference managers.

This Thomson Reuters subscription database helped usher in modern bibliometrics with its introduction of the h-index in 1982. Web of Knowledge includes Web of Science , for article and author queries, and Journal Citation Reports , for finding accredited and impact journals. Its metrics include times cited, h-index, impact factor, Eigenfactor, and field-based journal rankings. While many of these metrics have been criticized for not fully representing the scholarly value in certain disciplines, they are still considered the gold standard in traditional bibliometrics.

Google Scholar Citations provide a simple way for authors to keep track of citations to their articles. You can check who is citing your publications, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name. Best of all, it's quick to set up and simple to maintain - even if you have written hundreds of articles, and even if your name is shared by several different scholars. You can add groups of related articles, not just one article at a time; and your citation metrics are computed and updated automatically as Google Scholar finds new citations to your work on the web. You can choose to have your list of articles updated automatically or review the updates yourself, or to manually update your articles at any time

Ranking Journals: Journal Citation Report

What is the Journal impact Factor?

Journals are ranked by counting the number of times their papers are cited in other journals . Journal-level metrics are generally meant to serve as an indicator of journal prestige. The most well known of these is the journal impact factor, from Journal Citation Reports ® (a product of Thomson Reuters). ( Source ) 

The journal impact factor (IF) is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to recent articles published in the journal. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed to be more important than those with lower ones ( Wikipedia )

To find the Impact Factor of a journal , search the  Journal Citation Report   database. Journal Citation Reports (JCR) uses Web of Science data to calculate the impact factor Journal Citation Reports is published annually in two editions. Only the editions and years to which your institution subscribes appear on the home page.

• JCR Science Edition contains data about more than 8,000 journals in science and technology.
• JCR Social Sciences Edition contains data about more than 2,600 journals in the social sciences

Journals Ranking: Elsevier Journal Analyzer

Journal Metrics by Elsevier

Elsevier now provides three alternative, transparent and accurate views of the true citation impact a journal makes:

• Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP)
• The Impact per Publication (IPP)
• SCImago Journal Rank (SJR)

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is a prestige metric based on the idea that ' all citations are not created equal '. With SJR, the subject field, quality and reputation of the journal have a direct effect on the value of a citation. SJR is a measure of scientific influence of scholarly journals that accounts for both the number of citations received by a journal and the importance or prestige of the journals where such citations come from. It is a variant of the eigenvector centrality measure used in network theory.

The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. These indicators can be used to assess and analyze scientific domains.

This platform takes its name from the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicatorp, developed by SCImago from the widely known algorithm Google PageRank. This indicator shows the visibility of the journals contained in the Scopus® database from 1996.

Journal Ranking

Google Scholar Metrics

Google Scholar Metrics provide an easy way for authors to quickly gauge the visibility and influence of recent articles in scholarly publications. Scholar Metrics summarize recent citations to many publications, to help authors as they consider where to publish their new research.

• Browse the top 100 publications in several languages , ordered by their five-year h-index and h-median metrics.
• You can delimit the journal list per Subject fields
• To see which articles in a publication were cited the most and who cited them, click on its h-index number to view the articles as well as the citations underlying the metrics.

Bibiliometrics

• White paper: using Bibliometrics

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Citing Sources: What are citations and why should I use them?

What is a citation.

Citations are a way of giving credit when certain material in your work came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again-- it provides an important roadmap to your research process. Whenever you use sources such as books, journals or websites in your research, you must give credit to the original author by citing the source. 

Why do researchers cite?

Scholarship is a conversation  and scholars use citations not only to  give credit  to original creators and thinkers, but also to  add strength and authority  to their own work.  By citing their sources, scholars are  placing their work in a specific context  to show where they “fit” within the larger conversation.  Citations are also a great way to  leave a trail  intended to help others who may want to explore the conversation or use the sources in their own work.

In short, citations

(1) give credit

(2) add strength and authority to your work

(3) place your work in a specific context

(4) leave a trail for other scholars

"Good citations should reveal your sources, not conceal them. They should honeslty reflect the research you conducted." (Lipson 4)

Lipson, Charles. "Why Cite?"  Cite Right: A Quick Guide to Citation Styles--MLA, APA, Chicago, the Sciences, Professions, and More . Chicago: U of Chicago, 2006. Print.

What does a citation look like?

Different subject disciplines call for citation information to be written in very specific order, capitalization, and punctuation. There are therefore many different style formats. Three popular citation formats are MLA Style (for humanities articles) and APA or Chicago (for social sciences articles).

MLA style (print journal article):  

Whisenant, Warren A. "How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX." Sex Roles Vol. 49.3 (2003): 179-182.

APA style (print journal article):

Whisenant, W. A. (2003) How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX. Sex Roles , 49 (3), 179-182.

Chicago style (print journal article):

Whisenant, Warren A. "How Women Have Fared as Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Since the Passage of Title IX." Sex Roles 49, no. 3 (2003): 179-182.

No matter which style you use, all citations require the same basic information:

• Author or Creator
• Container (e.g., Journal or magazine, website, edited book)
• Date of creation or publication
• Publisher 

You are most likely to have easy access to all of your citation information when you find it in the first place. Take note of this information up front, and it will be much easier to cite it effectively later.

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Significance and implications of accurate and proper citations in clinical research studies

Citations are an essential component of clinical research studies. In health sciences most articles will refer to over 20 other peer-reviewed publications [ 1 ]. Citations are a core part of the entire research process. Citations fuel literature reviews [ 2 , 3 ] and they allow researchers to link their experiments to previous results and conclusions and establish credibility [ 2 , 4 , 5 ]. Citations can help authors contribute to the growing compilation of literature and prevent plagiarism [ 6 , 7 ]. However, prior studies have acknowledged a prevalence of improper citation [ [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] ]. Studies report citation inaccuracy rates of approximately 20–26% in biomedical literature [ 8 , 9 ]. Some studies have also reported citation inaccuracies within field-specific journals such as pediatric orthopaedics [ 8 ], neurosurgery [ 12 ], spine surgery [ 13 ], and foot and ankle surgery [ 14 ]. This trend is especially alarming as citation inaccuracies can diminish research validity [ 15 ]. Recognizing the causes or instances of inaccurate citations can prevent further improper citation [ 16 ].

1. What are the root causes of citation inaccuracies?

Citation misuse can originate in literature reviews, as authors can find and choose references in arbitrary fashions. This can stem from keyword choice; many authors use broad keywords to garner a large audience, but this can hurt the number of references they receive [ 17 ]. Language can also be a barrier: one study found over 30% of systematic reviews excluded studies not published in English, which dramatically decreases the scope of literature reviews [ 18 ]. Researchers may also be biased towards articles with many citations. This can be described as the ‘Matthew effect:’ the more a paper is referenced, the more it will continue to be referenced [ 19 , 20 ]. This is concerning as citation rate of articles is not necessarily an indicator of quality or significance [ 21 ]. While papers with many citations continue to receive attention, less cited articles may be neglected, potentially hindering research advancements.

Literature reviews may also be influenced by other arbitrary factors. For example, an author's social media presence showed a positive correlation with the rate at which they were cited [ 22 , 23 ]. Another consideration for citation rate is the primacy effect, which describes how citations listed earlier in a study are used more frequently than those that appear toward the end of a study [ 24 ]. The reputation of the author(s), organization(s), journal, or country represented by a paper may also play a role in the number of times it is cited [ 25 ]. Some authors or groups of authors may receive an increased number of citations based on their production level or experience in the field of study [ 25 ]. Additionally, luck and last name may inevitably affect the rate at which someone is repeatedly cited.

2. What are examples of citation inaccuracies?

Selective citation, whether purposeful or subconscious, is an endemic problem [ 11 , 26 , 27 ]. Studies showing positive results are cited more often than those with neutral or negative results, a phenomenon known as citation bias [ 26 ]. This gives readers a biased view and overrepresents positive findings [ 26 ]. Other common forms of improper citation usage include: secondary citation, incorrect/opposite conclusion, back door invention, fact not found, and inaccurate population. Secondary citation, or “amplification,” is the act of citing a fact in a paper that was itself supported by a citation instead of going to the original article [ 16 ]. Amplification leads to the expansion of a belief without additional primary data [ 10 ]. Incorrect/opposite conclusion occurs when inaccurate or missing information is cited. Specifically, an author may cite an article presenting the opposite conclusion referred to in the study [ 16 ]. This error is especially detrimental as studies make claims contradicting the citation, yet this contradiction may be further perpetuated in future studies via amplification. “Back door invention” is the error of citing abstracts while leading the reader to believe it is a peer-reviewed article [ 10 ]. Fact not found consists of a claim that a cited article has stated a fact or statistic, when in reality did not mention it at all and is therefore unsupported [ 16 ]. Lastly, inaccurate population involves the referencing of a study which may have found the results reported, but the results obtained in the cited article may not be generalizable to the population in the new study [ 16 ]. Research has also shown that citation of retracted studies occurs in many fields and these studies are often cited positively [ [28] , [29] , [30] , [31] ]. One study showed that even after 5 years, retracted studies by an author were still being cited, with only 25% of citations acknowledging it had been retracted [ 31 ].

3. What can be done to prevent or correct citation inaccuracies?

Solutions to many of these problems have been shared [ [15] , [16] , [17] , 22 , 23 ]. Authors can help others find their research by using targeted rather than generic keywords [ 17 ]. Similarly, a social media presence by journals and authors may be warranted to improve discoverability [ 22 , 23 ]. While not feasible for all literature reviews, machine learning has been used in finding relevant references for systematic reviews [ 32 ]. In short, machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence that allows systems to create algorithms based on data received. Future improvements in machine learning may allow for widespread use in finding and citing references in a way that is both efficient and accurate. One solution that has been proposed is the development of a tool named MyCites [ 33 ]. This tool would allow for the ability to mark citations as inaccurate and have these notations travel with the digital document so that future readers are aware of the accuracy of any contested citations [ 33 ]. These capabilities may help to stifle early citation inaccuracies and prevent the amplification of inaccurate citations.

Given the prevalence of citation inaccuracies, it is imperative those involved in the peer review process review submissions with an eye toward citation accuracy. At the start, authors must thoroughly recheck their citations and verify the relevance and validity of each reference. [ 34 ] One survey showed that only 4% of published scientists regularly check citations in articles they read [ 3 ]. Some authors have suggested that a simple checklist would avoid most errors [ 16 ]. It has also been suggested that editors develop training courses for authors outlining the acceptable citation styles pertinent to a particular journal [ 34 ]. Reviewers are in the unique role of making sure that new submissions are, evidence-based, in publishable condition, and add to the current body of knowledge. Such responsibility also includes evaluating the references of these submissions and suggesting the alteration, removal, or addition of references which would ensure citation accuracy [ 34 ]. The peer review process can help correct citation mistakes, especially through increased spot checks by editors/reviewers [ 9 ]. Lastly, the publisher's role in citation accuracy has started to include the use of software to process, link, and check the quality of references. [ 35 ] The increased utilization of new technology to verify citation accuracy will be of great benefit to both researchers and readers.

We also seek to share common guidelines for proper citation. First, ensure the citation provides correct publication details, including name, article title, and journal [ 15 ]. Second, the citation must substantiate the claim [ 15 ]. Next, authors should use unbiased sources that provide reliable data [ 15 ]. Articles from prestigious journals should not be assumed as reliable; analysis of the article itself is critical [ 15 ]. Additionally, be mindful of reconciling evidence. Authors should present the information in an objective manner [ 15 ]. In research it is crucial for “evidence to guide conclusions.” [ 36 ] Citations are an important part of the scientific process. They allow researchers to support and share findings, helping to further innovation. However, citations can be misused, slowing progress in clinical research and circulating unsupported beliefs. Many problems with citations can be fixed with increased attention to detail by authors and editors, ultimately strengthening credibility of the literature.

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Author contribution.

Study design and conception: AE. Data collection, interpretation and analysis: MN, CA, AE. Manuscript preparation: MN, CA, AE, MM. Critical revision of manuscript: MN, CA, MM, AE. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Adel Elkbuli.

Mark McKenney

Declaration of competing interest

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Citation Styles Guide | Examples for All Major Styles

Published on June 24, 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on November 7, 2022.

A citation style is a set of guidelines on how to cite sources in your academic writing . You always need a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize a source to avoid plagiarism . How you present these citations depends on the style you follow. Scribbr’s citation generator can help!

Different styles are set by different universities, academic associations, and publishers, often published in an official handbook with in-depth instructions and examples.

There are many different citation styles, but they typically use one of three basic approaches: parenthetical citations , numerical citations, or note citations.

Parenthetical citations

• Chicago (Turabian) author-date

CSE name-year

Numerical citations

CSE citation-name or citation-sequence

Note citations

• Chicago (Turabian) notes and bibliography

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Table of contents

Types of citation: parenthetical, note, numerical, which citation style should i use, parenthetical citation styles, numerical citation styles, note citation styles, frequently asked questions about citation styles.

The clearest identifying characteristic of any citation style is how the citations in the text are presented. There are three main approaches:

• Parenthetical citations: You include identifying details of the source in parentheses in the text—usually the author’s last name and the publication date, plus a page number if relevant ( author-date ). Sometimes the publication date is omitted ( author-page ).
• Numerical citations: You include a number in brackets or in superscript, which corresponds to an entry in your numbered reference list.
• Note citations: You include a full citation in a footnote or endnote, which is indicated in the text with a superscript number or symbol.

Citation styles also differ in terms of how you format the reference list or bibliography entries themselves (e.g., capitalization, order of information, use of italics). And many style guides also provide guidance on more general issues like text formatting, punctuation, and numbers.

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In most cases, your university, department, or instructor will tell you which citation style you need to follow in your writing. If you’re not sure, it’s best to consult your institution’s guidelines or ask someone. If you’re submitting to a journal, they will usually require a specific style.

Sometimes, the choice of citation style may be left up to you. In those cases, you can base your decision on which citation styles are commonly used in your field. Try reading other articles from your discipline to see how they cite their sources, or consult the table below.

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) recommends citing your sources using Chicago author-date style . AAA style doesn’t have its own separate rules. This style is used in the field of anthropology.

APA Style is defined by the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . It was designed for use in psychology, but today it’s widely used across various disciplines, especially in the social sciences.

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The citation style of the American Political Science Association (APSA) is used mainly in the field of political science.

The citation style of the American Sociological Association (ASA) is used primarily in the discipline of sociology.

Chicago author-date

Chicago author-date style is one of the two citation styles presented in the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). It’s used mainly in the sciences and social sciences.

The citation style of the Council of Science Editors (CSE) is used in various scientific disciplines. It includes multiple options for citing your sources, including the name-year system.

Harvard style is often used in the field of economics. It is also very widely used across disciplines in UK universities. There are various versions of Harvard style defined by different universities—it’s not a style with one definitive style guide.

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MLA style is the official style of the Modern Language Association, defined in the MLA Handbook (9th edition). It’s widely used across various humanities disciplines. Unlike most parenthetical citation styles, it’s author-page rather than author-date.

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) provides guidelines for a citation style using numbers in superscript or italics in the text, corresponding to entries in a numbered reference list at the end. It is used in chemistry.

The American Medical Association ( AMA ) provides guidelines for a numerical citation style using superscript numbers in the text, which correspond to entries in a numbered reference list. It is used in the field of medicine.

CSE style includes multiple options for citing your sources, including the citation-name and citation-sequence systems. Your references are listed alphabetically in the citation-name system; in the citation-sequence system, they appear in the order in which you cited them.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ) provides guidelines for citing your sources with IEEE in-text citations that consist of numbers enclosed in brackets, corresponding to entries in a numbered reference list. This style is used in various engineering and IT disciplines.

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) citation style is defined in Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers (2nd edition).

Vancouver style is also used in various medical disciplines. As with Harvard style, a lot of institutions and publications have their own versions of Vancouver—it doesn’t have one fixed style guide.

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The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation is the main style guide for legal citations in the US. It’s widely used in law, and also when legal materials need to be cited in other disciplines.

Chicago notes and bibliography

Chicago notes and bibliography is one of the two citation styles presented in the Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). It’s used mainly in the humanities.

The Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities ( OSCOLA ) is the main legal citation style in the UK (similar to Bluebook for the US).

There are many different citation styles used across different academic disciplines, but they fall into three basic approaches to citation:

• Parenthetical citations : Including identifying details of the source in parentheses —usually the author’s last name and the publication date, plus a page number if available ( author-date ). The publication date is occasionally omitted ( author-page ).
• Numerical citations: Including a number in brackets or superscript, corresponding to an entry in your numbered reference list.
• Note citations: Including a full citation in a footnote or endnote , which is indicated in the text with a superscript number or symbol.

Check if your university or course guidelines specify which citation style to use. If the choice is left up to you, consider which style is most commonly used in your field.

• APA Style is the most popular citation style, widely used in the social and behavioral sciences.
• MLA style is the second most popular, used mainly in the humanities.
• Chicago notes and bibliography style is also popular in the humanities, especially history.
• Chicago author-date style tends to be used in the sciences.

Other more specialized styles exist for certain fields, such as Bluebook and OSCOLA for law.

The most important thing is to choose one style and use it consistently throughout your text.

A scientific citation style is a system of source citation that is used in scientific disciplines. Some commonly used scientific citation styles are:

• Chicago author-date , CSE , and Harvard , used across various sciences
• ACS , used in chemistry
• AMA , NLM , and Vancouver , used in medicine and related disciplines
• AAA , APA , and ASA , commonly used in the social sciences

APA format is widely used by professionals, researchers, and students in the social and behavioral sciences, including fields like education, psychology, and business.

Be sure to check the guidelines of your university or the journal you want to be published in to double-check which style you should be using.

MLA Style  is the second most used citation style (after APA ). It is mainly used by students and researchers in humanities fields such as literature, languages, and philosophy.

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Caulfield, J. (2022, November 07). Citation Styles Guide | Examples for All Major Styles. Scribbr. Retrieved August 27, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/citing-sources/citation-styles/

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New developments in the use of citation analysis in research evaluation

Affiliation.

• 1 Center for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands. [email protected]
• PMID: 19219533
• DOI: 10.1007/s00005-009-0001-5

This paper presents an overview of research assessment methodologies developed in the field of evaluative bibliometrics, a subfield of quantitative science and technology studies, aimed to construct indicators of research performance from a quantitative statistical analysis of scientific-scholarly documents. Citation analysis is one of its key methodologies. The paper illustrates the potentialities and limitations of the use of bibliometric indicators in research assessment. It discusses the relationship between metrics and peer review; databases used as sources of bibliometric analysis; the pros and cons of indicators often applied, including journal impact factors, Hirsch indices, and normalized indicators of citation impact; and approaches to the bibliometric measurement of institutional research performance.

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Academic Referencing: How to Cite a Research Paper

Learning how to conduct accurate, discipline-specific academic research can feel daunting at first. But, with a solid understanding of the reasoning behind why we use academic citations coupled with knowledge of the basics, you’ll learn how to cite sources with accuracy and confidence.

When it comes to academic research, citing sources correctly is arguably as important as the research itself. "Your instructors are expecting your work to adhere to these professional standards," said Amanda Girard , research support manager of Shapiro Library at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU).

With Shapiro Library for the past three years, Girard manages the library’s research support services, which includes SNHU’s 24/7 library chat and email support. She holds an undergraduate degree in professional writing and a graduate degree in library and information science. She said that accurate citations show that you have done your research on a topic and are knowledgeable about current ideas from those actively working in the field.

In other words, when you cite sources according to the academic style of your discipline, you’re giving credit where credit is due.

Why Cite Sources?

Citing sources properly ensures you’re following high academic and professional standards for integrity and ethics.

“When you cite a source, you can ethically use others’ research. If you are not adequately citing the information you claim in your work, it would be considered plagiarism ,” said Shannon Geary '16 , peer tutor at SNHU.

Geary has an undergraduate degree in communication  from SNHU and has served on the academic support team for close to 2 years. Her job includes helping students learn how to conduct research  and write academically.

“In academic writing, it is crucial to state where you are receiving your information from,” she said. “Citing your sources ensures that you are following academic integrity standards.”

According to Geary and Girard, several key reasons for citing sources are:

• Access. Citing sources points readers to original sources. If anyone wants to read more on your topic, they can use your citations as a roadmap to access the original sources.
• Attribution. Crediting the original authors, researchers and experts  shows that you’re knowledgeable about current ideas from those actively working in the field and adhering to high ethical standards, said Girard.
• Clarity. “By citing your sources correctly, your reader can follow along with your research,” Girard said.
• Consistency. Adhering to a citation style provides a framework for presenting ideas within similar academic fields. “Consistent formatting makes accessing, understanding and evaluating an author's findings easier for others in related fields of study,” Geary said.
• Credibility. Proper citation not only builds a writer's authority but also ensures the reliability of the work, according to Geary.

Ultimately, citing sources is a formalized way for you to share ideas as part of a bigger conversation among others in your field. It’s a way to build off of and reference one another’s ideas, Girard said.

How Do You Cite an Academic Research Paper?

Any time you use an original quote or paraphrase someone else’s ideas, you need to cite that material, according to Geary.

“The only time we do not need to cite is when presenting an original thought or general knowledge,” she said.

While the specific format for citing sources can vary based on the style used, several key elements are always included, according to Girard. Those are:

• Title of source
• Type of source, such as a journal, book, website or periodical

By giving credit to the authors, researchers and experts you cite, you’re building credibility. You’re showing that your argument is built on solid research.

“Proper citation not only builds a writer's authority but also ensures the reliability of the work,” Geary said. “Properly formatted citations are a roadmap for instructors and other readers to verify the information we present in our work.”

Common Citation Styles in Academic Research

Certain disciplines adhere to specific citation standards because different disciplines prioritize certain information and research styles . The most common citation styles used in academic research, according to Geary, are:

• American Psychological Association, known as APA . This style is standard in the social sciences such as psychology, education and communication. “In these fields, research happens rapidly, which makes it exceptionally important to use current research,” Geary said.
• Modern Language Association, known as MLA . This style is typically used in literature and humanities because of the emphasis on literature analysis. “When citing in MLA, there is an emphasis on the author and page number, allowing the audience to locate the original text that is being analyzed easily,” Geary said.
• Chicago Manual of Style, known as Chicago . This style is typically used in history, business and sometimes humanities. “(Chicago) offers flexibility because of the use of footnotes, which can be seen as less distracting than an in-text citation,” Geary said.

The benefit of using the same format as other researchers within a discipline is that the framework of presenting ideas allows you to “speak the same language,” according to Girard.

APA Citation for College: A Brief Overview

Are you writing a paper that needs to use APA citation, but don’t know what that means? No worries. You’ve come to the right place.

How to Use MLA Formatting: A Brief Overview

Are you writing a paper for which you need to know how to use MLA formatting, but don’t know what that means? No worries. You’ve come to the right place.

How to Ensure Proper Citations

Keeping track of your research as you go is one of the best ways to ensure you’re citing appropriately and correctly based on the style that your academic discipline uses.

“Through careful citation, authors ensure their audience can distinguish between borrowed material and original thoughts, safeguarding their academic reputation and following academic honesty policies,” Geary said.

Some tips that she and Girard shared to ensure you’re citing sources correctly include:

• Keep track of sources as you work. Writers should keep track of their sources every time an idea is not theirs, according to Geary. “You don’t want to find the perfect research study and misplace its source information, meaning you’d have to omit it from your paper,” she said.
• Practice. Even experienced writers need to check their citations before submitting their work. “Citing requires us to pay close attention to detail, so always start your citation process early and go slow to ensure you don’t make mistakes,” said Geary. In time, citing sources properly becomes faster and easier.
• Use an Online Tool . Geary recommends the Shapiro Library citation guide . You can find sample papers, examples of how to cite in the different academic styles and up-to-date citation requirements, along with information and examples for APA, MLA and Chicago style citations.
• Work with a Tutor. A tutor can offer support along with tips to help you learn the process of academic research. Students at SNHU can connect with free peer tutoring through the Academic Support tab in their online courses, though many colleges and universities offer peer tutoring.

Find Your Program

How to cite a reference in academic writing.

A citation consists of two pieces: an in-text citation that is typically short and a longer list of references or works cited (depending on the style used) at the end of the paper.

“In-text citations immediately acknowledge the use of external source information and its exact location,” Geary said. While each style uses a slightly different format for in-text citations that reference the research, you may expect to need the page number, author’s name and possibly date of publication in parentheses at the end of a sentence or passage, according to Geary.

A longer entry listing the complete details of the resource you referenced should also be included on the references or works cited page at the end of the paper. The full citation is provided with complete details of the source, such as author, title, publication date and more, Geary said.

The two-part aspect of citations is because of readability. “You can imagine how putting the full citation would break up the flow of a paper,” Girard said. “So, a shortened version is used (in the text).”

“For example, if an in-text citation reads (Jones, 2024), the reader immediately knows that the ideas presented are coming from Jones’s work, and they can explore the comprehensive citation on the final page,” she said.

The in-text citation and full citation together provide a transparent trail of the author's process of engaging with research.

“Their combined use also facilitates further research by following a standardized style (APA, MLA, Chicago), guaranteeing that other scholars can easily connect and build upon their work in the future,” Geary said.

Developing and demonstrating your research skills, enhancing your work’s credibility and engaging ethically with the intellectual contributions of others are at the core of the citation process no matter which style you use.

A degree can change your life. Choose your program  from 200+ SNHU degrees that can take you where you want to go.

A former higher education administrator, Dr. Marie Morganelli is a career educator and writer. She has taught and tutored composition, literature, and writing at all levels from middle school through graduate school. With two graduate degrees in English language and literature, her focus — whether teaching or writing — is in helping to raise the voices of others through the power of storytelling. Connect with her on LinkedIn .

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Organizing and Managing Citations

Citation management software can help you manage your research and easily organize and format your citations in a wide variety of citation styles. Check out the links below for more information about these useful programs. 

• Citation Management Basics This guide provides an overview of citation management software options, including basic functions and the differences between the various options available, including EndNote, EndNote Web, and Zotero. Also provided is contact information for Purdue librarians available to provide citation management support for Purdue faculty, students, and staff.
• EndNote at Purdue This guide provides detailed how-to and FAQ for EndNote citation management software, the desktop version.
• EndNote Basic EndNote Basic is an online citation management program that is freely available for all Purdue users. This guide highlights how-to, key functions, and FAQ, as well as differences between the desktop and online versions of this product.
• Zotero Zotero is a free and open, web-based citation management program. This guide provides info on getting started and carrying out key functions, for students and instructors. It also includes video tutorials.

Avoid Plagiarism

• Types of Plagiarism Plagiarism.org presents Plagiarism 101: What is Plagiarism?
• Citing Sources Plagiarism.org's useful guide to everything about citing sources.
• Avoiding Plagiarism Tips on how to summarize, paraphrase, and quote sources without plagiarizing from the Purdue OWL. Use the links on the left to navigate.
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Publication, Collaboration, Citation Performance, and Triple Helix Innovation Gene of Artificial Intelligence Research in the Communication Field: Comparing Asia to the Rest of the World

• Published: 28 August 2024

Cite this article

• Yu Peng Zhu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0544-3911 1 &
• Han Woo Park   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1378-2473 2  

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Artificial intelligence (AI) in the communication field has become increasingly popular in recent years. This study collected data from 482 documents and cited references in the Web of Science database. It explores the knowledge structure related to AI in communication, combined with the triple helix innovation gene model. The analysis employed collaborative network analysis, two-mode network analysis, citation analysis, and quadratic assignment procedure-based correlation analysis. The results show that the most popular hotspots are human–machine communication, automatically generated publications, social media-mediated fake news, and some other AI-based applied research. Academic collaborations can be facilitated by transnational disciplinary leaders. China emerged as the core academic country with the greatest growth potential in Asia, while the core non-Asian country is the United States. In addition, the trend in collaboration among scholars in Asia is better than in non-Asian countries. However, concerning the characteristics of collaborating institutions, the triple-helix collaboration among universities, government bodies, and industries remains insufficient. Particularly, the collaboration between industry and government necessitates further development.

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Zhu, Y.P., Park, H.W. Publication, Collaboration, Citation Performance, and Triple Helix Innovation Gene of Artificial Intelligence Research in the Communication Field: Comparing Asia to the Rest of the World. J Knowl Econ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-024-02280-6

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