Citations remain an important metric for academics, and more citations are always better. As researchers investigate the systems underlying citation counts, patterns have emerged in the data, suggesting factors that might affect how often a particular paper is cited. If you want to boost the number of citations to your research papers in a short time for maximizing impact, consider the simple techniques that we will discuss in this DoNotEdit article.
1- Cite your past works in new relevant manuscripts.
Cite your past papers in new manuscripts that are relevant to your research field. However, don’t cite every article you’ve written just to increase the number of citations to your research papers.
2- Watch your title length and punctuation.
Based on a review of more than 150,000 papers submitted to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework database in 2014, University of Bath economics professor, John Hudson, found that articles with shorter titles had higher citation counts, as did those with fewer authors. Long titles, too many authors, and poor punctuation have negative impacts on the research paper citation.
The study also found that the number of citations increased with the use of colons in the title but decreased with the use of question marks. Asking a question from the reader is not an optimal strategy for boosting the number of citations.
3- Choose important keywords.
Choose important keywords that researchers in your field are searching for. If you use important and frequently searched keywords, your paper will appear in a database search. Keywords are the first and most important part of your SEO strategy. Use keyword research tools for finding important and related keywords to your research paper. One option is to use Google Keyword Planner. Unfortunately, Google only gives approximated search volumes. Instead, you can use a tool like the Keyword Tool. It will give you a lot more details and help you narrow down the right direction for your search terms. On top of that, it can also give additional ideas on related keywords.
4- Use keywords in your title and abstract.
Use your keywords and phrases in your title and repeatedly in your abstract. Repeating keywords and phrases will put your paper at the top of a search engine list. It makes your research more appealing to readers.
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5- Take advantage of preprint servers for releasing results early.
Some researchers are anxious about putting their results on social media ahead of publication. They are afraid of being criticized for their unfinished research work. Their other concern is about the possibility of their ideas being stolen. These concerns are highly unlikely, and the more important issue is finding people to engage with them.
A team led by Nicholas Fraser, a bibliometrics researcher at the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics in Germany, recently found that papers that had been submitted to the biology pre-print repository, bioRxiv, prior to being published in a peer-reviewed journal garnered more citations on average than those without preprints.
Submitting papers to the biology preprint repository boosts the number of citations to your research papers for at least three years after publication. If your paper is not published in an open-access journal, post your pre- or post-publication prints to a repository.
6- Use a consistent form of your name on all of your papers.
Using the same name on all of your papers will make it easier for others to find all of your published work. If your name is very common, consider getting a research identifier, such as an ORCID. You can provide your ORCID in your email signature and link that ID to your publication list so that anyone you email has access to your publications. Lastly, you can get your ORCID by clicking here.
7- Avoid mentioning countries’ names in your title, abstract, or keywords.
A team at the National Research Council of Italy’s Laboratory conducted a study in this field and published it in Scientometrics in 2017. This study analyzed 456,710 publications published between 2004 and 2011. It suggests that country-level studies are less attractive to the international community compared to broader studies on the same subject.
8- Make sure that your information is correct.
Check that your name and affiliation are correct on the final proofs of your manuscript. You should check that the paper’s information is accurate in database searches.
9- Link your paper to the supporting data in a freely accessible repository.
Easy access to data might also affect the number of citations to your research paper. As one of the authors, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, the former head of data publishing at Springer Nature and now a publisher at PLOS, tweeted:
We classified the data availability statements of more than half a million papers @PLOS and @BioMedCentral. Moreover, linking papers to their supporting data in a repository was associated with an average of a 25% increase in citations.
10- Share your data.
There is some evidence that sharing your data can increase your citations. Consider posting to data-sharing websites, such as Figshare or SlideShare, or contributing to Wikipedia and providing links to your published manuscripts. Provide links to your papers on social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Mendeley) and your university profile page.
11- Be careful with hyphens.
Can hyphens in a paper’s title single-handedly affect the number of citation counts in Scopus, Web of Science, and the world’s leading citation indexing systems? A recent study led by T.H. Tse, a software engineer from the University of Hong Kong, and Zhi Quan Zhou, a computer scientist from the University of Wollongong, suggests this could be the case. Published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering in May, the study found that when authors failed to include hyphens in the titles of the papers they cited, it negatively impacted the number of citations their own research papers received. “Our results question the common belief that citation counts are a reliable tool to evaluate the contributions and significance of papers, and challenge the practice of using JIFs as a valid evaluation tool for journals,” the authors told Nature Index. The study proved controversial when the Web of Science Group refuted the findings.
12- Present your work at conferences.
Although conference presentations are not cited by others, this will make your research more visible to academic and research communities.
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| Scientific news report Tweetable abstract Simplified abstract (text for public) Citation quality improvement Citing your article by others (published manuscript) Finding the best citations for your article (unpublished manuscript) |