Optimize citations

 Source: http://journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/beyondpublication/optimizingcitations.asp

Optimize citations

When researchers refer to another author's work in their own published work, they cite it.
Such citations can be analyzed to measure the formalized usage of the cited work.

Databases such as Thomson Scientific's Science, Social
Sciences, and Arts & Humanities Citation Indexes compile the cited
references from articles published during a particular year or period.



These databases allow people to determine the research impact of
a researcher's publications according to the number of times they have
been cited by other researchers. Citation counts are often used in
research funding and
promotion decisions. Boosting citation rate is thus a potentially
important motivator for authors.
What can you do to optimize citations to your article?

• Publish your article in one of the journals everyone in your discipline reads.
• Target a journal with a high impact factor, or with any impact factor at all!
• Target journals in rapidly growing research fields because they tend to publish papers with a short time
  interval from submission to acceptance
• Write a review. Reviews are more likely to be cited than original research papers.
• Make it easy for others to access your work.
• Publish a straightforward paper on cutting-edge research or a "hot" topic.
• Choose an effective title.
• Make sure that relevant terms are included in the abstract.
• Choose keywords carefully to make sure your article will be found.
• Share your data (e.g. sample attributes, clinical factors, patient outcomes, DNA sequences) where possible.
• Let your Taylor & Francis contact know about upcoming or recent articles that may be of interest
  to media organizations.
• Think about making your article open access where available.
• Improve your web presence.
• Use blogs and podcasts to leverage on-going researcher discussion on the Internet.
• Register on CiteULike and Connotea.
• Get known in your community.
• Promote your article
• Go to conferences.
• Present a working paper.
• Review papers for journals.
• Join an editorial board.
• Publish in a special issue with a prestigious guest editor.
• Publish with other authors.
• Put your article in an institutional or subject repository.
• Publicize yourself - link to your latest article in your email signature.
• Make sure that you get help if you are not writing in your first language.

Be aware that...

• Not all research is published and cited in the citation databases mentioned above; for example, conference
  proceedings are often poorly covered.
• Some types of articles - for example, editorials, letters to editors, news items, meeting abstracts, and case
  studies - are generally poorly cited.
• The number of times a work has been cited should not be used to gauge the quality of the work; it really
  only measures the interests of other researchers in the work.
• Citation bias may exist, for example, English-language resources may be favored.
• Citation levels differ widely between research fields and even within a specific field. Basic research
  tends to be more highly cited than related applied research.
• Your rate of self-citation and citations among the members of a research group may be scrutinized.
  We do not endorse irrelevant self-citing as such endeavors go beyond the boundaries of securing
  high-quality content, optimizing engagement with the research community, and general good practice.

We can make your article more accessible

Ready access is a prerequisite of citation. In addition to core library
subscribers, our journals are made available to around 8,000 academic
institutions
worldwide through Ebsco Publishing Full-Text Databases and 460
institutions through arrangements with
library consortia.
Articles are published online through Taylor & Francis
Online.
Through excellent sales reach and vigorous marketing we ensure
that your article is seen, read,
and cited by your research community. Archiving agreements with
national libraries mean that your
article will remain accessible in perpetuity.



In some cases, we can make articles with high citation potential
freely accessible online - and
publicize them with e-marketing. We can help identify which recent
articles have the highest citation potential.
We are continuously working to improve the search engine rankings
for our journals. Our linking program extends
to many Abstracting and Indexing databases, library sites, and
includes participation
in CrossRef™. As publishers of scholarly information, we work with
Google Scholar to index peer-reviewed papers, theses, preprints,
abstracts, and technical reports from all disciplines and
to make them searchable via Google Scholar.



We can make your article more visible

This is one of the main goals of our journal marketing. Our sales and
marketing strategies and expertise deliver very high levels of journal
accessibility and visibility.
Taylor & Francis Alerting
is a service for emailing Tables of Contents for all Taylor &
Francis journals to anyone who has registered for the alerts. It is
completely free of charge. Users can choose to receive alerts
by keyword, title, sub-category or main subject category. Taylor
& Francis Alerting also provides instant
highly focused mailing lists that can be used for editorial- and
marketing-related emails,
such as Calls for Papers and special issue announcements.



We do not pass Taylor & Francis Alerting email lists on to third parties. Taylor & Francis actively promotes
Taylor & Francis Alerting to academic and professional listservs, and through our promotional presence
for the service at conferences. There are currently more than 1,600,000 registrants to the Taylor & Francis
Alerting contents alerting service.



We engage with core research networks

Scholarly communication occurs through networks of personal
acquaintances. Journals and articles are read and cited when they occupy
a valued position within these networks. Our strategies for enhancing
research network engagement include our implementation of the ScholarOne
Manuscript Electronic Editorial System (these systems increase quality
submissions, internationalize our author base, and reduce turnaround
times) and encouraging editors to co-opt "rising star" academics as well
as editors of key journals onto their editorial boards.



We can target key growth areas with specific initiatives - such
as an annual Best Young Asian Scholar prize in a particular subject. We
encourage editors to provide detailed feedback for rejected authors -
especially if they
are early in their career, and to invest time in improving decent
research that is poorly presented -
in particular if the author is not a native English speaker. We
believe that helping good work find its
proper expression is a service to the community.



We allow authors to self-archive articles

Research suggests that this can lead to increased citation levels. Our
copyright policies enable authors to self-archive as standard.



We will work hard to make sure that articles and journals are of excellent quality.
This is the most direct and powerful driver of high impact factor. In an ideal world every paper would be read and
judged on its merits. In practice, however, people often turn to the impact factor when assessing a journal's
quality or the standing of the researchers who have published in it. Key consumers of impact factor include
the library community, authors, tenure and promotion committees, and grant-awarding bodies. Surveys show
that impact factor is one of the top four factors considered by authors when deciding where to submit papers.
Researchers are acutely aware that impact factor journals confer status on those who publish in them,
with direct career benefits. We work with editors to achieve sustained improvements in journal impact factor.



Taylor & Francis Author Services - Optimize citations