Publishing Resources

Before you begin a citation search, it will be useful to have the following information:

• A list of all your authored and coauthored works, including doctoral and master's theses, journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, patents,etc.
• A list of any variants of your name under which you have published (including use of full name, middle name or initial; Jr., I, II, III, degrees, compound or hyphenated names,etc.) as well as any known misspellings of your name.
• A list of your coauthor(s) full name(s),any variants, and any known misspellings.
• Disciplines or cross-disciplinary specialty areas in which you publish.

The library licenses a growing number of databases, e.g. Compendex, PsycINFO, Academic Search Premier, IEEE, that offer citation counts from articles within that specific database. Check your discipline-specific databases to see if they provide citation counts.

Many databases provide options to create search alerts or citation alerts that will notify you when a new citation is entered. For more information on how to set up these alerts, please see the database Help screens or ask your subject librarian for assistance. 

The Hirsch index (h index) was proposed by J.E. Hirsch; it is defined as the number of papers with citation number ≥h, a useful index to characterize the scientific output of a researcher.

Databases with the h-index:

Journal metrics measure the performance and/or impact of scholarly journals. Each metric has its own particular features, but in general, they all provide rankings and insight into journal performance based on citation analysis.

In addition to formalized sources of journal metrics, there are many alternative ways of judging a journals impact.  Here are a few:

• Is the journal indexed in a major index or database?  See Ulrich's for journal indexing information or check the index/database title list directly.
• Is the journal produced, managed, or associated with a major university or organization associated with your field?
• Has it been reviewed by a service such as Cabell's?
• Who is on the editorial staff? Are they well known or important in your field?