Library Guides: Research Impact for Fine Arts and Music: Journal article metrics

Example statement

Sutherland, A. (2009). 'The Albatross in Music and Art: A Critical Review', Art and Music Reviews, 19 (3), 55-57.

Methodology article detailing novel approach to critical evaluation used in 7 major projects. 33 cites. Journal Impact factor rank 19 out of 112 for 2017.

Finding Publication level metrics

Journal article citation metrics are demonstrated by the number of times the work has been cited by others. For Fine Arts and Music, these results can be best found by systematically searching your article's title across numerous databases.

Preparation tips:

approach this task systematically, one article title and one database at a time.
record what you find in a systematic way to ensure you don't repeat yourself
develop meaningful folders for managing your data

General search tips:

Apply exact phrase searching techniques. To search by phrase simply put quotation marks ("...") around the terms you are searching.
With longer publication titles, keyword searches combined with author names can generate better results.
Always search full text to capture all possible results.
Please note citation databases like Google Scholar and Web of Science can sometimes make errors, assigning citing papers incorrectly. Harvesting citations from a number of different databases simultaneously can also cause issues, some of the references may be incomplete, so some manual checking may be required.

Things to consider:

The more recent the publication, the less citations are likely to be found.
Many databases that provide citation data do not have comprehensive coverage of the creative arts. Other measures, such as alternative metrics, will need to be considered.
Research impact measures are not comparable across disciplines.
No one database will provide a comprehensive measurement of impact.
The results between citation databases are not comparable since their coverage varies.
Citation counts alone are not an indication of excellent research. They should be used with other qualitative measures such as esteem.

Databases

Here is a list of multi-disciplinary databases, with basic instructions for obtaining citation counts for your publications.

For more detailed information about each database, select the appropriate tab on the left of this guide.

Scopus	Click the authors tab and search for your name. Then select and click your author set, and scroll down the documents list.
Web of Science	Select Researchers. Enter your name and click Search. Select the correct Author Names, or select multiple names and click View as combined record. Scroll through the documents to see your citations.
Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) Databases	Click Select Databases and choose one database at a time (to ensure all citations are found). Search for your name, select a record, and then click Times Cited in this Database.
ProQuest Databases	Click Databases to select which databases you want to search. Select Advanced Search and search for your name.
PsycINFO and Medline (Ovid)	NB Make sure Ovid database platform is selected. Click Search Fields, select au: Author and search for your name. Click Display Results.