Citation Analysis

Exploring citation analysis tools


If you would like to explore and assess the usefulness of citation analysis tools please take a look at the shared spreadsheet here.

Please select one or more tools and assess their usefulness for citation searching and co-citation analysis. 

Please note your findings and send them to us. We will add them to the spreadsheet.

Please also give your ratings of usability and value of a resource using the ratings cells for the resource(s) you have assessed.



Spreadsheet fields

The spreadsheet contains the following fields




Reading list 1

This is the reading list for Julie's and Alison's presentations 


Albarqouni L, Doust J, Glasziou P. Patient preferences for cardiovascular preventive medication: a systematic review. Heart. 2017;103(20):1578-86.


Albarqouni, L.; Hoffmann, T.; Glasziou, P.  Evidence-based practice educational intervention studies: a systematic review of what is taught and how it is measured. BMC Med Educ 2018;18 (1):177. DOI: 10.1186/s12909-018-1284-1.


Armstrong MF, Conduff JH, 3rd, Fenton JE, Coelho DH. Reference Errors in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Literature. Otolaryngology--head and neck surgery : official journal of American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. 2018;159(2):249-53.


Bae J-M, Kim EH. Citation Discovery Tools for Conducting Adaptive Meta-analyses to Update Systematic Reviews. J Prev Med Public Health. 2016;49(2):129-33.


Beckers, T., N. Maassen, B. Koekkoek, B. Tiemens and G. Hutschemaekers (2022): Can social support be improved in people with a severe mental illness? A systematic review and meta-analysis. In Current Psychology. DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02694-4. (uses Co-Cites)


Belter CW. Citation analysis as a literature search method for systematic reviews. J Assn Inf Sci Tec. 2016.


Belter CW. A relevance ranking method for citation-based search results. Scientometrics. 2017;112(2):731-46.


Briscoe, S., et al. (2020). "Conduct and reporting of citation searching in Cochrane systematic reviews: a cross-sectional study." Res Synth Methods 11(2): 169-180.


Cantrell, Anna; Booth, Andrew; Chambers, Duncan (2022): A systematic review case study of urgent and emergency care configuration found citation searching of Web of Science and Google Scholar of similar value. In Health Information & Libraries Journal. DOI: 10.1111/HIR.12428.


Cawley M, Beardslee R, Beverly B, Hotchkiss A, Kirrane E, Sams R, 2nd, et al. Novel text analytics approach to identify relevant literature for human health risk assessments: A pilot study with health effects of in utero exposures. Environ Int. 2020;134:105228.


Cooper C, Booth A, Britten N, Garside R. A comparison of results of empirical studies of supplementary search techniques and recommendations in review methodology handbooks: a methodological review. Syst Rev. 2017;6(1):234.


Greenhalgh T, Peacock R. Effectiveness and efficiency of search methods in systematic reviews of complex evidence: audit of primary sources. BMJ. 2005;331(7524):1064-5.


Haddaway, N. R., Grainger, M. J., Gray, C. T. (2021) citationchaser: An R package and Shiny app for forward and backward citations chasing in academic searching. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.4543513


Haddaway, Neal R.; Grainger, Matthew J.; Gray, Charles T.; Haddaway, Correspondence R. Neal (2022): Citationchaser: A tool for transparent and efficient forward and backward citation chasing in systematic searching. In Res Synth Methods. DOI: 10.1002/JRSM.1563.


Hampson, G., Roberts, S.L.E., Lucas, A. et al. An economic analysis of human milk supplementation for very low birth weight babies in the USA. BMC Pediatr 19, 337 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-019-1691-4  (reports using Hinde and Spackman)


Harzing A-W, Alakangas S. Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison. Scientometrics. 2016;106(2):787-804.


Hinde S, Spackman E. Bidirectional citation searching to completion: an exploration of literature searching methods. Pharmacoeconomics. 2015;33(1):5-11.


Hinde, S., L. Bojke and P. A. Coventry (2021): The Cost Effectiveness of Ecotherapy as a Healthcare Intervention, Separating the Wood from the Trees. In International journal of environmental research and public health 18 (21), 11599-NA. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph182111599. (reports using methods of Hinde and Spackman)


Hirt J, Nordhausen T, Appenzeller-Herzog C and Ewald H. Using citation tracking for systematic literature searching - study protocol for a scoping review of methodological studies and a Delphi study [version 2]. F1000Research 2021;9:1386 (doi: 10.12688/f1000research.27337.2)


Huang, C. K., et al. (2019, 01.09.2019). "Comparison of bibliographic data sources: implications for the robustness of university rankings." Retrieved 02.07.2020, from http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/09/01/750075.abstract.


Janssens A, Gwinn M, Brockman JE, Powell K, Goodman M. Novel citation-based search method for scientific literature: a validation study. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2020;20(1):25.


Janssens ACJW, Gwinn M. Novel citation-based search method for scientific literature: application to meta-analyses. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2015;15:84.


Levay P, Ainsworth N, Kettle R, Morgan A. Identifying evidence for public health guidance: a comparison of citation searching with Web of Science and Google Scholar. Res Synth Methods. 2015.


Linder SK, Kamath GR, Pratt GF, Saraykar SS, Volk RJ. Citation searches are more sensitive than keyword searches to identify studies using specific measurement instruments. J Clin Epidemiol. 2015;68(4):412-7.


Morton, E.; Murray, G.; Yatham, L. N.; Lam, R. W. (2021): The Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder (QoL.BD) questionnaire a decade on – A systematic review of the measurement of condition-specific aspects of quality of life in bipolar-disorder. In Journal of Affective Disorders 278, pp. 33–45. DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.09.017.


Mudry, A. (2021). "History of Mastoidectomy: PubMed, Best Matches, Secondary References, and Inaccuracies." Otol Neurotol 42(2): 341-344.


Portenoy J, West JD. Supervised Learning for Automated Literature.


Robinson KA, Dunn AG, Tsafnat G, Glasziou P. Citation networks of related trials are often disconnected: implications for bidirectional citation searches. J Clin Epidemiol. 2014;67(7):793-9.


Rogers, M., et al. (2020). "Resources for forwards citation searching for implementation studies in dementia care: A case study comparing Web of Science and Scopus." Res Synth Methods 11(3): 379-386.


Sarol, M. J.; Liu, L.; Schneider, J. Testing a Citation and Text-Based Framework for Retrieving Publications for Literature Reviews. In, vol. 2080. 7th International Workshop on Bibliometric-enhanced Information Retrieval (BIR 2018), pp. 22–33. (https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/testing-a-citation-and-text-based-framework-for-retrieving-public)


Stevens, J. R. and J. F. Duque (2019). "Order matters: Alphabetizing in-text citations biases citation rates." Psychonomic bulletin & review 26(3): 1020-1026.


Thijs, B., M. Niek, K. Bauke, T. Bea and H. Giel (2022): Can social support be improved in people with a severe mental illness? A systematic review and meta-analysis. In Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) NA (NA), 1-NA. DOI: 10.1007/s12144-021-02694-4. (reports using Co-cites)


Urlings, M. J. E.; Duyx, B.; Swaen, G. M. H.; Bouter, L. M.; Zeegers, M. P. (2021): Citation bias and other determinants of citation in biomedical research: findings from six citation networks. In J Clin Epidemiol 132, pp. 71–78. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.11.019.


van der Velden, L. L., M. A. C. de Koff, G. M. Ribbers and R. W. Selles (2022): The diagnostic levels of evidence of instrumented devices for measuring viscoelastic joint properties and spasticity; a systematic review. In Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation 19 (1), 16-NA. DOI: 10.1186/s12984-022-00996-7. (reports using C-Cites)


Wright K, Golder S, Rodriguez-Lopez R. Citation searching: a systematic review case study of multiple risk behaviour interventions. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2014;14(1):73.

Reading list 2

A selected list of references for papers comparing citation indexes/resources



1. Thelwall M. Dimensions: A competitor to Scopus and the Web of Science? J Informetr. 2018;12(2):430-5.

2. Martín-Martín A, Orduna-Malea E, Thelwall M, Delgado López-Cózar E. Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories. Journal of Informetrics. 2018;12(4):1160-77.

3. Himmelstein DS, Romero AR, Levernier JG, Munro TA, McLaughlin SR, Greshake Tzovaras B, et al. Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature. Elife. 2018;7.

4. Harzing A-W, Alakangas S. Google Scholar, Scopus and the Web of Science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison. Scientometrics. 2016;106(2):787-804.

5. Gorraiz J, Melero-Fuentes D, Gumpenberger C, Valderrama-Zurián J-C. Availability of digital object identifiers (DOIs) in Web of Science and Scopus. J Informetr. 2016;10(1):98-109.

6. Sarkozy A, Slyman A, Wu W. Capturing citation activity in three health sciences departments: a comparison study of Scopus and Web of Science. Med Ref Serv Q. 2015;34(2):190-201.

7. Mongeon P, Paul-Hus A. The journal coverage of Web of Science and Scopus: a comparative analysis. Scientometrics. 2015;106(1):213-28.

8. Levay P, Ainsworth N, Kettle R, Morgan A. Identifying evidence for public health guidance: a comparison of citation searching with Web of Science and Google Scholar. Res Synth Methods. 2015.

9. Gehanno J-F, Rollin L, Darmoni S. Is the coverage of Google Scholar enough to be used alone for systematic reviews. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2013;13:7.

10. de Winter JCF, Zadpoor AA, Dodou D. The expansion of Google Scholar versus Web of Science: a longitudinal study. Scientometrics. 2013;98(2):1547-65.

11. Bramer WM, Giustini D, Kramer BM, Anderson P. The comparative recall of Google Scholar versus PubMed in identical searches for biomedical systematic reviews: a review of searches used in systematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2013;2:115.

12. Schmidt CM, Mls RC, Fial Ma A, Hartman Mls TL, Magee Msa M. Gaps in affiliation indexing in Scopus and PubMed.