16

Is there a special database somewhere where you can see how often other scholars have cited you or your publications in their scholarly works?

My professor is always saying, "No one has cited me on this..."

Is that just his general assessment or does he know this from a verified source?

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    What field are you in? In addition to the excellent general-level databases referenced in the answers below, there are some discipline-specific databases (ADS for astronomy and astrophysics, for instance, and some other examples are in some of the answers below).
    – NeutronStar
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 16:17

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
15

Google scholar works pretty well, though with all of these things there are edges cases that cause problems (non unique names, random poster presentations showing up counting as citations, etc.)

I find that ResearchGate tends to be pretty good. People can comment, annotate, and more generally fix up the metadata issues on this site in a social media style, and so it tends to be pretty accurate. However, since it's still quite new most papers are missing from its databases (though it still tends to count citations correctly?).

Improve this answer
3
  • 4
    Nice answer. I would add scopus to your answer too.
    – The Guy
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 2:00
  • For this particular question: The errors/problems in Google Scholar mostly give too many citations, so for a little-cited paper you can count by hand how many "real" citations it has, no matter what you consider "real".
    – JiK
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 12:01
  • @JiK: I've a reversed experience, within which this system has not considered one of my citations, even 1 year after the publication of the corresponding paper!
    – user41207
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 13:58
5

One of the official databases is Web of Science. It only includes citations of the published (not preprint) paper.

Improve this answer
3
  • 4
    Please define "official"... I'm curious.
    – kebs
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 13:57
  • 1
    @kebs, Good point. Google Scholar picks up citations from more sources. These include pre-prints and "gray" literature (e.g., technical reports published by government agencies that may or may not be peer-reviewed). Web of Science tends to be more conservative and only picks up formally published articles. Also, Web of Science does not index as many journals as Scholar, which is both good (fewer/no predatory journals) and bad (they tend to be biased towards larger, commercial publishers).
    – Richard Erickson
    Commented Apr 4, 2016 at 18:13
  • Official means the administration, who decides whom to hire, would use these databases to look you up and compare your achievements with other candidates'.
    – user21264
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 14:12
2

In mathematics there is the extremely reliable database MathSciNet. The drawbacks are that it's not freely available and it takes some years for papers and citations to appear there correctly. However, it really is accurate (they have staff to handle difficult cases with similar author names, authors changing names and stuff).

Improve this answer
0

If you're in high-energy physics, look at your author profile or paper on inspire.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .