With each year, the number of studies getting published in international peer-reviewed journals continues to increase. So, for any study that gets published, it is very critical that it gets cited by other researchers as only then will the impact of the study increase.

Citation metrics provide a way to quantitatively measure the impact, quality, and significance of published research. Most of these metrics are based on journal citations and do not provide a way to measure author or article level performance. There are various factors influencing the number of citations and the quality of the published work. Note that citation metrics are calculated based on average counts of citations per paper (within set parameters).

However, these citation metrics are considered to be indicative of the readership and popularity within the scientific community for a particular journal. Therefore, measuring the number of citations is an important benchmark for journals, institutions, and even individual academics. In this infographic, we provide a brief introduction to the commonly used citation metrics.