Maximizing Citations to Enhance Reputation and Impact
The number of citations your research accrues is one measure of impact on the global research community.
- Citations can enhance your reputation as a scholar. For example, the h-index is an author-level metric calculated using citation data that is widely used to represent scholarly output.
- Citations are a useful tool to demonstrate scholarly excellence and expertise in support of submissions for prestigious honours & awards nominations and, funding applications.
- Citations increase the visibility and retrievability of your work through citation networks, and the prominence of your work in searchable databases.
- Citations enhance the University’s position in global university rankings and contribute to the reputation of your department, faculty, and institution. The contribution of individual’s citation counts all contribute, especially for the subject rankings. University rankings can help to attract potential faculty, students, and staff.
Strategies to Increase Citation Counts
Choose How and Where you Publish Carefully
There are many ways to enhance citation counts and these suggestions are not exhaustive. Researchers can identify a combination of strategies that work for their program of research.
- International collaborative papers are typically cited more frequently. Working with an international partner will expose your research to additional networks of scholars and raise the profile of your work.
- Publish in a forum that is read by the people who are most interested in your research, typically a journal, but other formats can be important too.
- Publishing in a prestigious journal may enhance citations, but it can be detrimental if there is a mismatch between your research topic and the audience of the journal.
- Consider interdisciplinarity and the international scope of the journal as these can broaden your network of potential readers and garner additional citations.
- Consider Open Access publishing. There are many benefits to Open Access, including an increase in potential audience and ease of communication
Promote Your Research After Publication
- Discover Research is an online tool to highlight, celebrate and promote all of the University’s research experts and to spark discovery, connection and collaboration. Faculty can use the tool to showcase their research and expertise. Learn how to update your Discover Research profile.
- Develop a communication strategy, make sure the world knows about your research. Work with your local Research Officer to understand the resources available to you or contact faculty liaison librarians with expertise in your subject area.
- Social media can be a big asset: Learn the basics of how to promote your research and raise your profile. Visit our Guide: Using Social Media to Promote Your Research.
- Use and update researcher identifiers and profiling tools such as ORCID, Scopus ID, and Google Scholar.
Resources to Help Maximize Citations to Your Research
The University of Toronto has various resources to help you maximize citations to your research.
This University of Toronto Libraries guide is intended to provide scholars with an introduction to measuring research impact. There are several methods used to measure research impact. This guide covers common measures such as author impact, journal impact, article impact, book impact and alternative metrics. The guide also explores the values, limitations, and appropriate usage for each research impact metric.
Citation counts are not the only measure of impact, and they are less relevant in some disciplines. Citation counts should be used with caution and used responsibly. Alternative and complementary indicators are also available such as views, mentions, policy citations etc.
This resource provides a primer on Altmetrics from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. The use of alternative indicators is a developing area and the (external) link provides more information.
