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Researchers cite other people’s work to acknowledge the material they used when writing their own paper. It’s useful to see which articles go on to cite the paper you’re reading, and how it may have built on or challenged its ideas.
Cited-by helps members find out who is citing their content, display the counts, and link to the citing content. Members tell us what works their papers are referencing by giving us that information as metadata when they register content. Then they can query which papers are citing their content.
Members who use this service are helping readers to:
- easily navigate to related research;
- see how the work has been received by the wider community; and
- explore how ideas evolve over time by highlighting connections between works.
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How it works
Members who include references in their own metadata are able to query publications that cite their content. This allows for the display of citation counts and lists on articles so readers can see that the content they’re reading is being cited, as in the New Journal of Physics example (https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/1/1/006), also displayed here:
How to participate
Cited-by follows a simple three-step process:
- Step 1: Publishers deposit references as part of the regular content registration.
- Step 2: We match the metadata in the references to DOIs to establish a Cited-by relationship in the database. As new content is registered we automatically update the relationships and notify you of new links.
- Step 3: Publishers and hosting platforms query relationships, retrieve the metadata of citing articles and display the links on their website.
Best practice
- Participation in Cited-by is optional, but encouraged.
- Because citations can happen any time, Cited-by links must be kept up-to-date. So, members should either check regularly for new citations or (if performing XML queries) set the alert attribute to “true”. This means the search will be saved in the system and you’ll get an alert when there is a new match.
- Once retrieved, Cited-by counts should be included and linked on your website.
Obligations & fees
- Participation in Cited-by is optional.
- There is no charge for Cited-by.
- You must include references when you register content, in order to be eligible for Cited-by.
- You only retrieve Cited-by metadata for your own content.
- Our public APIs include Cited-by counts but not the actual works.
FAQs
Please contact our member services team with any questions or to get set up, or contact our support team for any technical or troubleshooting questions.
