Are there ways to improve the citations of a scientific paper?

Eur J Intern Med · 2018

other · Level V

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: The expansion of scientific publications makes more difficult the mining of relevant information necessary for a productive appraisal of authors' work, scientific interaction and exchange. Papers over-citation is unproductive, under-citation of innovative research generates delay and inefficiency. The extraction of information from the literature is mostly based on keywords (KWs). METHODS: I computed the chances of citation of one paper as 1/number of papers retrieved by the KWs published in that paper, and compared them with the chances obtained by selecting different KWs. RESULTS: Using generic KWs the chances are smaller, at times practically nil, as compared to those calculated with more specific KWs and their association. CONCLUSIONS: Selecting scientifically-analyzed KWs, specific for the message conveyed by a paper and computing beforehand the theoretical chances of citation, might increase the citations obtained, the retrieval of important scientific and innovative information, optimize scientific exchange and qualitative productivity. LEARNING POINTS.