Citation Searching for Tenure and Promotion: Article or Book Impact/Citation Analysis

The traditional metric for scholarly work is the number of times an article/book/conference paper, etc.  is cited in scholarly literature.  Web of Science and Google Scholar are the most comprehensive sources for citation counts, but they don't cover all disciplines equally well, particularly in the social sciences and humanities.  For these fields, it may be necessary to search discipline specific databases as well.

For non-traditional article metrics such as coverage in social media (Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, online newsletters, etc.) click on the 'Altmetrics' tab.

 Google Scholar:

• Coverage is extensive, but not comprehensive.
• Searches journal and conference papers, theses and dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature.
• May contain duplication or variants of a single work, due to lack of unified control of author names or titles.
• Contents updated several times a week, but corrections to existing citations can take months.
• Does not appear to go as far back in time as Web of Knowledge and other databases

Can GS citation counts be gamed?  Read Phil Davis' December 12, 2012 blogpost: Gaming Google Scholar Citations, Made Simple and Easy

CiteSeerX (Beta)

• Focused primarily on the literature in computer and information science.
• Includes lists of most cited documents, citations and authors, and venue impact rating.

Guide to searching CiteSeerX

Some full text databases such as those listed below don't have a 'cited reference' search option, but they allow you to do a keyword search for cited references.  

Hein Online (Law),

Project Muse (Humanities & Social Sciences) 

SpringerLink (Sciences)

Worldcat - A catalog of the combined holdings of thousands of libraries, primarily in the US and Europe.  Search Worldcat to get an approximate idea of how many libraries own your book.

Google Scholar: Search for a book title in quotation marks (i.e. "Pedagogy of the Oppressed")  If the book has been cited by publications found by Google Scholar, there will be a 'Cited By' link.

Other indicators of the reception of a book or book chapter may include:

• use as a university textbook
• listed on 'bestseller' lists
• awards and honours received
• number of copies sold, editions and translations into other languages
• number of book reviews

Web of Science:

• Designed specifically for cited reference searching
• Most comprehensive in the sciences (weaker in social sciences and humanities)
• Searches journal articles, conference proceedings (1990-present) and book chapters (2005-present).

Use Web of Science to:

• Find articles that cite your work.  

• Search for all variants of your name/works. 
   
• Eliminate self-citations. Written Instructions
   
• Create a citation map for your works. 

• Create Personalized Reports. 

Ebscohost databases that have either  a or  link at the top of the screen allow cited reference searching of the database's contents.

• Open the Cited References tool and enter your name (or author you wish to search), date range, etc.
• The resulting list will be articles written BY the cited author.  
• Click beside each title you want to see cited.
• Click on the 'Find Citing Articles' button

These databases include: Abstracts in Social Gerontology, Academic Search Complete, Bibliography of Native North Americans, Business Source Complete, CINAHL, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Criminal Justice Abstracts,  Education Research Complete, Film & Television Index with Full Text, GreenFILE, Hospitality & Tourism Complete, Humanities International Complete, LGBT Life with Full Text, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts With Full Text, Literary Reference Center, Political Science Complete, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, SocINDEX with Full Text, and Violence & Abuse Abstracts.

Many Proquest databases, such as those below, provide a 'cited by (number)' link in the search results records. 

For example: Sociological Abstracts and Proquest Dissertations and Theses.

Hover over database name for more details.