The Publish or Perish Book, Part 2: Citation Analysis for Academics and Administrators

The Publish or Perish book is a companion to the Publish or Perish software program, which retrieves and analyzes academic citations.

Part 2 of the book provides a detailed discussion of the most common day-to-day uses of the software, such as preparing for tenure and promotion, evaluating other academics, deciding on journal submission, and doing a literature review.

Contents

The first chapter provides a brief introduction to citation analysis as well as an overview of the most popular data sources and metrics in use. An introduction to the main features of the Publish or Perish software is provided in Chapter 2.

Chapter 3 provides tips and tricks for academics that need to make their case for tenure or promotion. I discuss the importance of reference groups as well as several ways to show your citation record to its best advantage.

In Chapter 4, I discuss how to evaluate other academics. The examples in this chapter vary from a 5-minute preparation before meeting someone you don't know, to evaluating editorial board members or prospective PhD supervisors, from writing up tributes (or laudations) and eulogies to deciding on publication awards and preparing for a job interview.

Chapter 5 turns the tables and looks at citation analysis for Deans and other academic administrators. It includes four topics: the need to accept Google Scholar as an alternative data source, the myths about self-citation, the inappropriateness of citation analysis at early career stages, and the differences in citation impact across disciplines.

In Chapter 6, I show how Publish or Perish can be used to assist you when you are uncertain which journal to submit it to. It can be used to get ideas of the types of journals that publish articles on the topic you are writing on and to compare a set of journals in terms of their citation impact. Finally, once you have decided on the target journal, it can also help you to double-check that you haven't missed any prior work from the journal in question.

Chapter 7 shows you how Publish or Perish can be used to do a quick literature review to identify the most cited articles and/or scholars in a particular field. It can also be employed to identify whether any research has been done in a particular area at all (useful for grant applications). Other applications are to evaluate the development of the literature in a particular topic over time.