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Citation Report

The Citation Report provides aggregate citation statistics for a set of search results. These statistics include:

  • The total number of results found (Results Found field);

  • The total number of times all records have been cited (Sum of Times Cited field);

  • The total number of citations to all results found in the results set minus any citation from articles in the set (Sum of Times Cited without Self-Citations field);

  • The total number of citations to any of the items in the set of search results (Citing Articles field);

  • The citing articles minus any article that appears in the set of search results (Citing Articles without Self-citations field);

  • The average number of times a record has been cited (Average Citations per Item field);

  • The total number of times a record has been cited for all years in the results set (Total column); and

  • The h-index count that is based on the list of publications ranked in descending order by the Times Cited count.

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About Citation Report Citations

The Citation Report reflects citations to source records indexed within a product. We recommend that you perform a Cited Reference Search to include citations to items that are not indexed in the product. Source records indexed in our citation indexes include a Full Record.

If you perform an All Databases search, the Citation Report reflects citations to source records within all citation indexes in the Web of Science platform, which includes:

  • Web of Science Core Collection
  • BIOSIS Citation Index
  • Chinese Science Citation Database
  • Russian Science Citation Index
  • SciELO Citation Index

As a rule, an All Databases Citation Report will not exactly match a Citation Report generated in Web of Science Core Collection because the All Databases report uses the Sum of the Times Cited count, which generally differs from the Times Cited count for Web of Science Core Collection. This rule applies to all citation indexes.

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Citation Summary Table

The Web of Science platform includes the following citation databases.

  • Web of Science Core Collection
  • BIOSIS Citation Index
  • Chinese Science Citation Database
  • Data Citation Index

The Citation Summary table in All Databases displays a breakdown of citation counts and averages across all citation indexes in Web of Scince, including counts from citation indexes that are not in your institution's subscription.

As a rule, an All Databases Citation Report will not exactly match a Web of Science Citation Report because the All Databases report uses the Sum of the Times Cited count, which generally differs from the Times Cited count for Web of Science. This rule applies to all citation indexes.

Links allow you to access and view the Citation Report for the records from each citation index that match your search query. You can find these links in the Records Found data row. If a citation index is not within your institution’s entitlements or if the Records Found data row is zero, then no link will display. Further, the records must be within your entitlements in order to access and view them.

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Results and Citation Counts

Records on the Results page are sorted by Times Cited -- highest to lowest by default. However, you can sort the results by selecting another sort option from the Sort by menu located at the top and bottom of the table.

If you return to the previous Results page and sort by Times Cited, you should see the same records in the same order.

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Year Columns

The columns to the right of each record show the number of citing articles in each year.

  • Use the Left arrow to see citation counts for previous years.
  • Use the Right arrow to see citation counts for future years.

All citing years are shown based on the timespan that you selected to do the original search. For example, if you set the timespan to 2000-2005, the Citation Report would show all citing years from 2000 to the present year. The system, however, returns all results published from 2000 to 2005.

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Total Column

The top number in the Total column is the total number of citing articles for all years in the results set. The figure is calculated be adding the total number of citations for each year. For example:

Total = 967

        1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 
          3      4       4       6       18     52     84     104   96     121   155   112   129   79

A total count is calculated for each record in the Citation Report table using the same formula as shown above. For example:

Record #6 in the Citation Report table
Total = 88

        2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 
         16    14     18       16     12     12

Click the number in the Total column for a particular record to view all citing articles.

You can modify the set of results and then generate a new citation report on this page. For example, you could select the check boxes next to items 4 and 5 and then click the Go button. This action removes those records from the Citation Report. It also would generate a new Citation Report based on results that have at least one citing article. For a large set of results, you could use the lists to select a span of database years, and then generate a new Citation Report.

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Average Citations Per Year

This number indicates the average number of citations to articles in the results set since the articles were published. It is a simple formula in which you take the number of citations in the Total column and divide it by the number of years in the Year columns. For example:

Total Column = 307
Number of Years = 11

Average Citations Per Year = 27.91

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Citation Report Graphs

Published Items in Each Year

This graph shows how many items in the set were published each year. It shows which years produced the largest number of papers in the set and which years produced the smallest number. The data is based on the timespan that you selected from the Search page.

Citations in Each Year

This graph shows how many citations were made each year to any items in the set. It shows which years produced the largest number of citing articles and which years produced the smallest number. The data is based on the timespan that you selected from the Search page.

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Citation Report Aggregate Statistics

Results found

This field shows the total number of records in the results set. It is based on the timespan that you selected to do the original search. For example, selecting All Years may yield 250 results; however, selecting Year to Date may only yield 50 results.

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Sum of Times Cited

This field displays the total number of citations (cited references) to all of the items found in the results set. This is the sum of the Total column, which displays the total number of citing articles for all years in the Citation Report table.

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Sum of Times Cited without Self-Citations

This field displays the total number of citations (cited references) to all of the items found in the results set minus any citation from articles in the set.

For example, Smith AJ has published seven articles that were cited a total of nine times. Two of these articles, however, have cited three of the articles in the results set. The Sum of Times Cited without Self-Citations is calculated at six.

Times Cited Count = 9
Cited References   = 3 (self-citations)

Sum of Times Cited without Self-Citations = 6

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Citing Articles

This field displays the total number of citing articles for all items in the set of search results. Click the Citing Articles link to display the citing articles.

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Keep in mind that the number of citing articles retrieved may be smaller than the sum of the Times Cited count because an article may cite more than one item in the set of search results.

For example, you have six articles in the Citation Report. An author may have cited three of the articles in his or her paper. In this instance, the system retrieves four citing articles - not six. We only display a citing article once.

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Citing Articles without Self-citations

This field displays the total numer of citing articles minus any article that appears in the set of search results on the Citation Report. Click the Citing Articles without self-citations link to view a list of these results.

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Average Citations per Item

This field displays a simple formula that calculates the average number of citing articles for all items in a set. It is the sum of the Times Cited count divided by the number of results found. For example:

Sum of the Time Cited: 967 
Results found: 55 

967 / 55 = 17.58

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h-index1

This field displays the h-index count and is based on a list of publications ranked in descending order by the Times Cited count.

The h-index is indicated by an orange horizontal line going through the Year / Total Year columns. The number of items above this line, which is "h" have at least "h" citations. For example, an h-index of 20 means there are 20 items that have 20 citations or more. This metric is useful because it discounts the disproportionate weight of highly cited papers or papers that have not yet been cited.

Calculating the h-index Value - The h-index factor is based on the depth of years of your product subscription and your selected timespan. Items that do not appear on the Results page will not be factored into the calculation. If your subscription depth is 10 years, then the h-index value is based on this depth even though a particular author may have published articles more than 10 years ago. Moreover, the calculation only includes items in your product - books and articles in non-covered journals are not included.

1. The h-index was developed by J.E. Hirsch and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102 (46): 16569-16572 November 15 2005.

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Output Records

Output includes a five-year range that appears on the Citation Report.

  1. Go to the Sort by menu and decide how you want to sort the records.

  2. Select an output option.

  3. From the processing overlay dialog, click Save to complete the output process.

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Output Options

  • Select the Print icon to print records to your printer.

  • Select the E-mail icon to send up to 500 records to one or more e-mail addresses. Use a semicolon ( ; ) and a space to separate multiple addresses.

  • Select Text File from the Send To menu to save records to a .txt file that you can open in a spreadsheet program.

  • Select Excel File from the Send To menu to export records to Microsoft® Excel using tabs as delimiters. The output includes graphs and all calculation tables displayed in the Citation Report.

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Why Can't I Open a Record in Excel

Be aware that you may not be able to open some records in an XLS file.

The XLS file saves fine – the data is all there in the file. However, Excel cannot open the file correctly because the maximum number of characters Excel allows in a field is 32,767 and the Author field of a record (as well as the Address field) contains more than that number. There does not appear to be a way to safely open the saved file in Excel because at least 1 cell contains more than 32,767 characters.

Note that a file that you cannot open in Excel can be opened correctly in Google Docs (and probably in other software). Click this link to go to Google Docs.

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Citation Report Help Topics

This help page includes information about the following topics.

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Did You Know ...

The Citation Report is available in the following products.

  • All Databases
  • Web of Science Core Collection
  • BIOSIS Citation Index
  • Chinese Science Citation Database
  • Russian Science Citation Index
  • SciELO Citation Index

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Accessing a Citation Report

A Citation Report is available for the following types of searches:

  • Basic Search
  • Advanced Search
  • Search within Results
  • Refine Results

To go to the Citation Report page, click the Create Citation Reports link that appears below the Sort by box on the Results page.

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About Source Articles

We count citations from the reference list in journals and other published papers. Source articles are from records that we have indexed in the product. Every source article has a Full Record in the product. A cited article that is not linked to a Full Record is not a source article.

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Sort Options
  • Publication Date -- newest to oldest
  • Publication Date -- oldest to newest
  • Recently Added
  • Times Cited -- highest to lowest
  • Times Cited -- lowest to highest
  • First Author -- A to Z
  • First Author -- Z to A
  • First Author -- by Chinese Name
  • Source Title -- A to Z
  • Source Title -- Z to A
  • Conference Title -- A to Z
  • Conference Title -- Z to A

Want to know more?