Article metrics

Article metrics for scholarly publications gauge an article's impact, visibility, and significance within academia and beyond.

They are used by researchers to assess the significance of their own work, by institutions to examine research productivity and impact, and by funding agencies to allocate resources and support impactful research. You may be asked for a list of your best publications or similar for grant applications and promotions. 

The information below will guide you through different types of articles metrics and where they're available to help analyse the performance of your scholarly articles.  

  • Citations

    Citations for articles refer to references made to that article in other scholarly works. These references acknowledge the influence, contribution, or relevance of the original article to the citing work. Citations are a key measure of scholarly impact and are used to assess the influence and importance of research within its field. 

    Resources to use:  

    • Google Scholar 

    Note: Your articles may not be included in all of these resources as they do not all index the same journals and may also be limited by date range. Make sure to check multiple sources for a comprehensive analysis of your article citations.  

    For further support, please contact your Liaison Librarian. 

  • FWCI

    The Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) is a metric used to evaluate the impact of scholarly articles within specific research fields available from Scopus. It compares the citation performance of an article to the average citation rate of other articles in the same field, considering differences in citation practices between disciplines.  

    Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) is the InCites (Web of Science) equivalent of FWCI. It is calculated by dividing the actual count of citing items by the expected citation rate for documents with the same document type, year of publication and subject area.  

    An FWCI and/or CNCI greater than 1.00 means the article is more cited than expected according to the world average. Conversely, a score below 1 suggests lower than average citation performance within the field. The FWCI and CNCI provide valuable tools for assessing the relative impact of scholarly articles while accounting for disciplinary differences in citation practices. 

    Resources to use:  

  • PlumX

    PlumX metrics offer a diverse set of indicators to gauge the impact of research articles in the online environment. It is available via Scopus and metrics are split into five categories: 

    • Citations: This category contains traditional citations from databases such as Scopus, as well as citations such as clinical or policy mentions. Specific metrics include citation indexes, patent citations, clinical citations and policy citations. 

    • Usage: This measures if anyone is reading the article or otherwise using the research. Specific metrics include clicks, downloads, views, library holdings and video plays.  

    • Captures: Indicates that someone wants to come back to the work. Captures can be an indicator of future citations. Examples include bookmarks, code forks, favourites, readers and watchers. 

    • Mentions: Measure activities such as news articles or blog posts about research. Examples include blog posts, comments, reviews, Wikipedia references, and news media. 

    • Social Media: Measures the attention and interactions of an article on social media platforms and may be a good measure of how well a particular piece of research has been promoted. It includes shares, likes, and comments.  

    These metrics collectively provide a comprehensive view of an article's influence beyond academic citations. 

    Resources to use: Scopus (see how to view article metrics in Scopus) 

  • Highly cited / hot papers

    Highly Cited and Hot Papers are indicators applied to articles in Web of Science that are producing high impact when compared to papers in the same field with the same publication date. If your paper has been identified as a Highly Cited Paper or Hot Paper, you will see an icon next to your paper to designate this status.  

    Highly Cited Papers are articles published within the past decade that rank in the top 1% for citation count when compared to peer papers from the same field and publication year. 

    Hot Papers are articles published within the last two years that rank in the top 0.1% for citation count during the most recent two-month period, in comparison to peer papers from the same field and publication date. 

    Both Highly Cited and Hot Papers serve as important indicators of impactful research and are often used by researchers, institutions, and funding agencies to assess the significance and relevance of scholarly articles. 

    Resources to use: Web of Science (see finding highly cited and hot papers) 

  • Top 10% papers

    Top 10% papers for a scholarly author refer to articles or papers that rank within the top 10% based on certain metrics, such as citation counts or other indicators of impact. These papers are considered the most influential and significant contributions made by an author in their field of research. 

    Identifying top 10% papers can be done using various bibliometric tools and databases that allow researchers to analyse citation data for their publications and determine which papers have received the highest number of citations or other measures of impact. 

    Resources to use:  

    • Scopus/SciVal  

    • Google Scholar 

  • Example statements

    • This article has been cited 213 times (Scopus). It has a Field Weighted Citation Impact of 14.27 demonstrating that it has been cited significantly more frequently than the global average in this field, and it is currently ranked in the top 1% most cited papers worldwide (Scopus).  

    • This article has been cited 155 times (Web of Science) and is as a Web of Science Highly Cited Paper. It has a Category Normalized Citation Impact of 3.44 demonstrating that it is being cited more than the global average in this field (InCites). 

    • This article has been cited in 37 news stories from outlets including The Guardian and The Conversation, and in 3 policy documents including 1 from the UK Government (PlumX).