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What I have learned from my Google Scholar and H index

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Abstract

Following Hartley (Scientometrics 118:375–381, 2019) I attempted to draw lessons from my personal Google citations (> 100,000) by reviewing over 100,000 personal citations. The review asked eight questions: Do papers in high impact journals necessarily lead to higher personal citations? Does innovative research attract more citations than replications and refinement? Do reviews and meta-analysis attract more citations than empirical studies? Which gets cited more: books, chapters, presentations, chapters? What determines the pattern of individual paper citations over time? Do citations vary across academic disciplines? Is it better to focus on a few specific journals or “spread-the-word” to maximize citations? How important is it to devise one’s own tests (statistical/diagnostic) to maximize citations? All these questions were answered by inspecting this N = 1 data set. It provides hypotheses for other researchers to explore and test. Limitations are acknowledged.

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Correspondence to Adrian Furnham.

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Furnham, A. What I have learned from my Google Scholar and H index. Scientometrics 122, 1249–1254 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03316-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03316-4

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