The importance of a publication is sometimes determined by counting the number of times it has been cited by other scholars, which helps to assess the article's impact on its discipline. Also, searching for the most-cited articles can help identify key information ("citation chasing").
Different citation analysis tools count citations from different sets of publications in different ways. Also, counting the number of times a work has been cited, often within the database you're searching, doesn't give a complete picture. It's best to use more than one source to identify a citation count.
According to Publish or Perish 4 User's Manual, statistical measures used to describe the results of an analysis can include:
If you have any difficulty access the two titles suggested below, you can go through our library home page at http://library.csueastbay.edu. Click on "Databases A-Z" and scroll down to the database you want.
