There is no doubt that citation number is an important indicator that shows How many times has an academic article been visited by other researchers or institutions? This is the main reason that researchers and institutions are looking for ways or methods to increase their paper citations. Although there are different methods, there is no exact or straightforward way to achieve them since there is a wide range of affecting factors. So, Due to the importance of citations for academic papers, this article tries to introduce different methods using which you can boost your academic paper citations.
Different methods to boost academic paper citations
As mentioned in the introduction, we will explain ways to increase your paper visibility in detail. We classified these methods into two groups: research-based and media-based methods.
Research-based methods
These are factors that are directly related to the quality of the paper, the way is written, etc. these factors are as follows:
Your research should be of high-quality
It would help if you first wrote a high-quality article to reach more visibility and citation. A weak article or something with a lack of novelty can’t properly attract researchers’ attention and acquire good citations. Consider you want to write an article on the “antimicrobial effect of thyme essential oil.” You may have accurate data and heavy work on your research. But, if you search in google scholar, you can find several similar papers from past years up to date. It is obvious there are almost similar results. So, if your paper has a chance to accept in a journal, it may be lost among hundreds of similar, highly cited researchers. This means that your paper has a low chance of getting citations.
Another tip you should consider when you want to write a high-quality article is that it should be prepared based on solid research, significant findings, and a strong discussion. It should be written in clear language, and methodology and statistical analysis should be in appropriate form. To have a chance to accept an article in a journal, you should implement the journal guidelines.
Choose Appropriate keywords
Keywords in research papers are commonly used to search for a specific article among thousands in databases or Google. So, using clear, relevant, and commonly-used keywords will help your paper has higher discoverability and appear in search results. It is noteworthy that using keywords in the title and abstract increase the discoverability of your paper since they are the first parts a prospective researcher would see in your paper.
Your name and affiliation should be consistent in all papers.
This will help other researchers to find and cite you easily. Consider you use two or three different affiliations in your recent articles. They may confuse about which can connect you. However, if you have a common name or your name is written in different variations, it would be better for you to get a unique name or identifier like ORCID ID and link it to your papers.
Increase the accessibility of your research.
The open-access journals provide a freely accessible published article for all researchers. However, you may publish your paper in a non-open-access journal, and it is not free of charge and accessible to others. Nonetheless, you can increase accessibility by sharing your article’s pre- or post-print version on the appropriate repositories. However, before sharing, you should read the journal’s copyright policies. If there were no conflicts, you are free to share it and increase your readers and citations.
Media-based methods
The abovementioned ways were related to the article and how it is written. The following points describe how you can use social media to increase our paper’s visibility and citations.
Sharing your raw data alongside our article
This approach elevates the transparency and reproductivity of your work; at the same time, it can spark research motivation to reuse your data. For example, if you do GPC, HPLC, and GC analysis for all your treatments in your work, but due to journal, guideline you have limitations regarding the number of figures in your article, you can share them on other platforms like figshare or other repositories; then properly cite these data sources in your article. You can upload them as supplementary files alongside your article too. These all show how comprehensive your work is and how it may attract others’ attention to read your paper.
Use online conferences to increase reach and boost citations.
These days there are different online and offline conferences, and participating in relevant conferences would be an excellent opportunity to attract attention to your work. These events can help you create new connections, expand your network, and get feedback on your work. You can also attract attention to your paper by presenting or preparing a poster with a QR code or URL to direct other researchers to your article.
Leverage social media to boost visibility and citation.
No one can deny the importance of social media in different aspects of our lives; these are great tools to increase citations too. Use social media channels like Researchgate, LinkedIn, research square, etc., to share your paper link with potential readers. These activities will help your article get more prospective audiences, experts, journals, and so on.
Actively boost your paper or research work.
You can use social media and, at the same time, leverage other channels to increase your work readers. These channels are online but a bit different from social media. Such prominent channels in this regard are blogs, podcasts, online newsletters, etc. You can also consider emailing your paper to those interested in your research field and asking them to cite it if they are ok.
Conclusion
There are different ways you can use to increase paper citations. These methods are divided into two main groups: research-based and social media-based methods. The first includes publishing a high-quality paper, using the right keywords, using consistent affiliation for all papers, and sharing pre- or post-print articles. How