The number of citations for an individual article or study reflects the impact of that specific piece of research. It may be a useful addition to your resumé or grant application.
The journal impact or rank does not describe the impact, importance or quality of an individual paper.
Scholarly impact
Traditional scholarly citation metrics reflect an article's long-term contribution to the scientific literature. Citation counts are available for articles submitted to scholarly journals in citation databases and other sources such as Google Scholar.
Alternative metrics (alt-metrics), or social impact
PlumX metrics (viewable on CRO) can include metrics for social impact such as the number of article views, numbers of downloads, or mentions in social media and news media.
- The number of views or downloads from a publisher's web site or institutional repository indicate that someone is interested in reading an article.
- Mentions in blogs and news stories, or citations in Wikipedia, demonstrate that an article is reaching the intended audience.
- An article bookmarked in CiteULike, or shared in Mendeley by other researchers, is considered to be important to other researchers.
- Articles shared via social media (Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn) have caught the attention of someone.
Alternative metrics will normally be available earlier than traditional citation metrics, which are dependent on journal publishing cycles.
Further details:
Alternative metrics & social impact
