Citations: who's citing my paper?

Who's citing my paper?

Academics and researchers frequently ask "How do I find out who has been citing this paper?" or "Who has been citing my paper?"

Many databases have citation tracking features (see below) but, they only track the journals associated with the individual database. The Web of Science (WoS) database, updated weekly, tracks citations across many peer reviewed, quality journals. It also includes a Citation Report which aggregates citation statistics for a set of search results.

Importantly, Web of Science data is used for international league tables, highly cited researchers and research assessment exercises in various countries.

Web of Science

Web of Science is a powerful search tool for your area of research. The citation links locate papers citing the original document and the cited references. Find Related Records is a list of articles that cite at least one document cited by the parent record. It is a unique way of searching for articles by looking for shared references from the parent document.

Web of Science uses a specific list of refereed journal titles for citation analysis. Journals in the Arts and Humanities, especially for Australia are very limited in coverage. The database retrieves citations from 1965 or 1975 onwards, but will also retrieve Cited References for the years prior to these dates.

Citation Report

In addition to the citation links, WoS also provides a Citation Report. The Citation Report provides aggregate citation statistics for a set of search results. It includes:
  • The total number of times all items have been cited
  • The average number of times an item has been cited
  • The number of times an item has been cited each year
  • The average number of times an item has been cited in a year

h-index

Access the h-index is accessed via the Citation Report. The h-index is indicated by a green horizontal line. The number of items above this line, which is h, have at least h citations. For example, an h-index of 20 means that there are 20 items that have 20 citations or more.

This metric is useful because it discounts the disproportionate weight of highly cited papers or papers that have not yet been cited.

For more information on how J. E. Hirsch developed the h-index, view his article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102 (46): 16569-16572 November 15 2005.

Web of Science coverage:

  • Science Citation Index Expanded: 1965 - present
  • Social Sciences Citation Index: 1965 - present
  • Arts and Humanities Citation Index: 1975 - present

Searching Web of Science

1. Use the Library guide to find:
  • who has cited your UOW publication
  • who has cited a specific paper or year
  • search tips
  • instructions on saving records into Excel

2. Try the ISI Web of Science tutorial

Finding cited authors not listed in Web of Science

Many databases provide features that allow you to find citing articles for records within the database. Databases that do not provide this feature may also be interrogated by searching the reference lists, see below for more information. Using databases may be helpful finding citations not listed in Web of Science.

Databases with Citation Links

Databases, such as ScienceDirect, SciFinder Scholar, Ovid Databases and others provide links to citing articles. This feature is becoming more prevalent in databases and is useful to find citing articles within the database subject area.

ScienceDirect

ScienceDirect Cited by link locates articles citing the parent record. This feature only locates articles within the ScienceDirect database.

Google Scholar

Coverage by Google Scholar includes theses, books, pre-prints, peer reviewed papers and technical reports across all disciplines. Results display abstracts of articles with links to fulltext if available. Use the Cited by... link to locate the citing articles. Click on Advanced Scholar Search to locate articles by a specific author.

Humanities & Social Sciences

Fulltext databases allow you to search the bibliographies or reference lists. This search method is not comprehensive and does not provide the same type of information as Web of Science, however it does assist with searches across the non-science areas.

Points to note when searching fulltext databases.

  1. Type in the cited author's name, use the drop down menus and look for options such as: fulltext, all fields (including fulltext), text word, references or article text
  2. If searching a common surname also type in a related keyword or subject area and use the drop down menu to reflect the same search option as in step 1
  3. Use the guide to Finding Cited Authors in the Humanities and Social Sciences for some specific database examples

Thomson Scientific: Research

Thomson Scientific uses its citation data to produce a number of online tools.

HighlyCited researchers

ISI HighlyCited.com is a gateway to the top 250 most cited researchers for their published articles within a specific time-period. Read ISI's essay on identifying highly cited researchers.

In-cites

In-cites is a behind-the-scenes look at highly cited research with interviews, essays and rankings. Search by scientists, papers, institutions, journals and countries. View a ten year country rankings for Australia among the 147 top performing countries in all fields.

SCI-BYTES

SCI-BYTES provides weekly updates in what's new in research. The site includes Hottest Papers published within the last 2 years.
Last reviewed: 4 March, 2008

       

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Follow Me Printing

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