Win Friends and Influence Faculty: Methods for Citation Analysis

Citation analysis is a way to analyze references cited in scholarly publications. It is common for academic organizations to evaluate faculty research and publication records, especially for hiring, pay, promotion and tenure decisions, by comparing the quality and quantity of a candidate’s research with that of their peers. One of the ways for a faculty member to demonstrate the impact of their work in a field is to conduct a citation analysis. This paper examines the capabilities and problems associated with various commercial products that can be used to conduct a citation analysis and looks at the strengths and limitations of using Google Scholar as a citation tool. The paper concludes that since all sources miss some citations the best practice is not to rely solely on one source given that the most comprehensive results are achieved by consulting multiple sources