Q. What are citation reports and how do I use them?

Citation reports are databases used to find the impact factor of journals, ie. statistical assessments of a journal‘s relative importance to its academic discipline (‘bibliometrics’).

The Journal Citation Reports database is part of the Web of Science suite of databases, so if the journals are included in WoS, you should be able to find their impact factors. To use, within the JCR database click on Help first before searching.

For any of the journals not listed in JCR similar journal citation/impact information can be found in the following databases:

• Eigenfactor
• Journal SCImago (SJR) 

Although not the same as the impact factors provided in JCR, they may be useful for ranking the importance of journals.

The Library also provides an introduction to journal impact through the following guides and presentations:  

• Introduction to Journal Bibliometrics / Research Impact
• Table of Journal Impact Standards
• Accessing Personal Author Impact Statistics
• Using Bibliometrics / Research Impact in the SCOPUS platform

Also see the journal impact / bibliometrics support pages in our Researcher Library Guide.

If you still have problems accessing journal impact information after taking a look at the above guides and resources contact your Liaison Librarian.