Citations

Citations

Anononon (guest) 15 Mar 2011 20:43

Just curious to hear what some of you do to try and get more citations for your publications (if anything beyond writing good papers)? Candidates are now indicating what their h-index is so if you want to raise your own in a short period of time what helps?

ano (guest) 15 Mar 2011 20:55

I don't think you can forcibly inflate your own h factor in a short period of time. The h factor is meant to be an indirect evaluation of your work by the field in the long run. That said, these things might help you get exposure, which may indirectly beget citations:

- Publish in high profile journals - more people will see it
- Present your work at conferences and brownbags, meet and talk to other scientists - exposure gets your work on other peoples' radar
- Try to collaborate with a wider net of people - get yourself into multiple science circles and you might get papers out of it too
- Establish a presence in the field - so that when someone thinks of topic ABC they will think of you
- Have a website with downloadable papers - make it easy for people to access your work
- The more papers you publish, the greater chance of any given paper to really take off …

clinical_ph.d. (guest) 16 Mar 2011 00:52

Agree with Ano. If you're saying in a year to year kind of sense (i.e., I want to have a higher h-index for next years job market), then there is pretty much nothing you can do at all. Given the lag time in submission to publication, your h-index for next fall is simply a matter of what is currently in the pipeline that has cited you, but not yet been published. When those go to press they'll help.

In the long run, all those things ano mentioned are good ideas. But they are good ideas whether you care about your h-index or not. The one thing about the h-index that I dislike is that the number of times you cite yourself counts. So this really incents people to shamelessly cite their own research. But since that is the game, then you should always make sure to cite yourself when necessary. Also make sure your colleagues are citing you as well.

Re: Citations

vd 16 Mar 2011 13:45

I agree with the previous comments. There is not much you can do to increase your h-index in a short period of time. I would say that most of my citations come from three sources:

(a) Myself — which only happens if I continue to publish.

(b) Researchers who work on a similar topic and become aware of my work — sometimes I've e-mailed papers to potentially interested researchers.

(c) The field in general if the work is on a "hot" or very timely topic — if you get a foundational paper out there and people just need a generic citation to a topic, your paper could be it.

oldtimer (guest) 16 Mar 2011 15:49

Ditto to the above. "Back in the day" before the internet existed (yeah, I've been around that long) it was routine with every publication to order a bunch of reprints and mail them to the people working in the same area. That quaint practice has all but disappeared today, but I am guessing it might be a good way of making your work better known to the major figures in the field. I recommend sending your best/most recent article or two to the most prolific active researchers working in your specialty area. Don't be bashful; the worst they'll do is toss it out. And even if it doesn't boost your h-index in the short run, you're also sowing the seeds of becoming well known by the Big Names in your field who very likely could be asked to write external letters for your tenure review some day.

thebest (guest) 17 Mar 2011 13:14

I have to disagree. I think it comes off as oddly self-centered to send someone an article that they haven't requested. I would not do this unless I had a working relationship with that individual.

evenbetter (guest) 18 Mar 2011 18:20

Do academics possess the notion of self-centeredness?

Idoubtit (guest) 18 Mar 2011 23:01

If they don't work at Minnesota…yes.