Google Scholar gives you several features that allow you to evaluate any article that you come across. These tools can help you evaluate the impact of an article, journal, or author. You can use these metrics to find journals to publish in, discover emerging topics in the field, or find more resources similar to your topic.
The Cited by # button shows you how many other papers have used that particular article in their work. This can give you a sense of the article's impact in the field. Usually the higher the number of 'cited by' articles = higher impact in that field.
Clicking the button will take you to the full list of articles that cite the work.
Author Impact
If you are interested in a particular author's impact and work you can check the author's profile. To look up an author's profile type in an author's name and hit search. If your author has a profile it will show up at the top of the page.
If the author has a common name - you will need to chose the correct profile from a list. Take your best guess if you're unsure and be aware that an author may not have a profile or has chosen to keep it private.
The author profile will contain the author's affiliations or place of work. Some authors will be verified by their email address. Under some authors' names there will be a list of fields or topics that the author has contributed to. This will give you an idea of the author's expertise and interests. The profile will list out each article written by that author as well as the article's 'cited by' numbers. The right hand side will contain a box with the overall impact factors of the author. This includes the H-index and breakdowns by year. There will also be a list of co-authors who have worked with the author you've looked up.
To find journal metrics start at the Google Scholar home page and click on the hamburger menu on the left hand side. In the drop down menu you will see a Metrics tab.
The Metric's home page will display the top 10 most cited publications over the last 5 years and Summary statistics by funding agencies. This page will list the journal's h5-Index and the h5-median. See the left hand side boxes on this page for definitions.
If you have suggestions for how to make this page better, please contact Elizabeth Jerow, Library Director (jerow@msoe.edu).
