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Citation Count Information

Category:  Article Level

Definition: Citation count is the number of times an article is cited in other bodies of literature.

Use Case: Citation count allows you to go beyond a number and describe why and where important ideas are spread from a researcher's original work to subsequent citing works.

Location: Citation databases including Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science, and Dimensions, and the citation tool iCite.

Field Normalized? No

Caveats: 

  • Inconsistent when you compare it from database to database.
  • Citations are impacted by the age of the paper.
  • Difficult to track citations to unpublished articles such as preprints or white papers.

Sample Statement: The article "Managing COVID-19 in Surgical Systems," which was co-authored by Dr. Gawande, has 235 citations (Scopus).

What that means:  There are 235 publications that have used this paper in their reference list since the paper was published in 2020.