Maximize Your Research Impact
Easy as 1-2-3:
- Step 1: Identify the right journal
But, before you submit your manuscript, make sure to… - Step 2: Increase the visibility/discoverability of your scholarship
Finally, - Step 3: Track citation-based metrics for your articles
Step 1: Identify the right journal
First, think about which journal has theappropriate scope and audience of researchers interested in your
research. The more your research is read; the more it will be used and
cited by others. Journal home pages and more experienced colleagues
can provide guidance.
Second, identify which journals publish research similar to yours. (Read More)
Third, evaluate the journal impact factor
which tells you how often the average article published with the last
two years has been cited. The journal impact factor and many other journal-level citation metrics can be found by searching Journal Citation Reports, which uses Web of Science citation data. (Read More)
What if a journal is not listed in the Journal Citations Reports. (Read More)
Fourth, consider journal affordability. Check the
subscription price, especially for institutions and the number of
libraries maintaining current subscriptions using WorldCat, a master catalog of North American library holdings. (Read More)
Fifth, find out if there are good peer reviewed open access journals in your field using the Directory of Open Access Journals. There may be an article processing fee, but your work can be freely read by any researcher in the world. (Read More)
Step 2: Increase the visibility/discoverability of your scholarship
- Reserve your right to post an open access (OA) preprint, final manuscript, or published version of your article. (Read More)
- Be sure to use your full name and standard institutional name/address to assure easily identifiable citations to your work.
- Pay special attention to writing a descriptive title and an informative abstract.
Step 3: Track citation-based metrics for your articles
There are many tools that track citations to your work and calculatestandard metrics for tenure/promotion dossiers and other career
purposes. Resources include personal profiles, subscription databases,
and free web services. For example:
Personal Profiles
- ORCID – a new,
broadly supported researcher profile that creates a unique author
identification number. By creating an authoritative publication list
associated with your id number, you can minimize confusion with other
researchers with similar names. - ResearcherID
– an older id system associated with the Web of Science (WOS). Your
ORCID and ResearcherID profiles can easily be linked. Citation counts
for publications in ResearchID are automatically updated from WOS.
- Web of Science
– the premier citation database covering journal articles from all
disciplines, including social sciences and humanities, despite its
name. (Read More)
- SciFinder
– a broadly based science database focusing on chemistry, life,
environmental, materials sciences, and physics. Citations since 1996
are recorded. There is no citation report feature.
- Harzing’s Publish or Perish
- By far, the best free web tool that uses Google Scholar data to
calculate many citation metrics. Citations to and from all forms of
scholarly material are captured, including articles, conference papers,
book chapters (especially important to the Humanities and Social
Science disciplines), patents, and technical report. Hence, metrics may
be higher than Web of Science. Downloads for Windows, Mac, and Linux
systems. - Google Scholar My Citations – Only tracks your own publications.
It is important to identify the best citation resources for your
field. Getting an accurate, complete citation count is a complex
process requiring in-depth knowledge of the underlying database. Contact
A. Ben Wagner, the chair of the University Libraries Scholarly Communications Committee, or your departmental library liaison to discuss your specific needs.
Last Updated: 5/8/2013
Maximize Your Research Impact - Transforming Scholarly Communication & Publishing - University at Buffalo Libraries
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