It is over 50 years since envisioned citation indexing tools that would allow researchers to expedite their research process, evaluate the impact of their work, spot scientific trends, and trace the history of modern scientific thoughts. Dr Garfield went on to build a company – ISI (now Thomson Scientific) around these ideas.

Here we bring together essays and articles written by Dr. Garfield and other Thomson Scientific staff members, to provide in-depth explanatory information for users of our citation databases and other information tools.


Citation Analysis

• Expected Citation Rates, Half-Life, and Impact Ratios: Comparing Apples to Apples in Evaluation Research
• Mapping the Precursors of Modern Structural Biology
• Research Fronts
• Scientography: Mapping the Tracks of Science

Citation Indexing

• Fifty years of citation indexing and analysis
• History of Citation Indexing
• Reaction Similarity and Retrieval
• The Concept of Citation Indexing: A Unique and Innovative Tool for Navigating the Research Literature

Journal Citation Reports

• Cited Title Unification
• Journal self-citation in the Journal Citation Reports - Science Edition (2002)
• The Agony and the Ecstasy: the history and the meaning of the Journal Impact Factor
• The ISI Impact Factor
• Using the ISI Impact Factor

Journal and Web Site Selection Process

• Current Web Contents Web Site Selection Criteria
• Selection of Content for the Web Citation Index(TM): Institutional Repositories and Subject-Specific Archives
• The Thomson Scientific Journal Selection Process

Use of the ISI Citation Database

• Linking Literatures: An Intriguing Use of the Citation Index
• Monitoring Complex Literature: the Advantages of Using a Multidisciplinary Database
• The Application of Citation Indexing to Journals Management
• The Relationship Between Citing and Cited Publications: A Question of Relatedness

Archived essays

• Citation-Based and Descriptor-Based Search Strategies
• From Retrieval to Analysis: How the Article Summary Interface Can Get You There
• Tailoring the Search
• Where Was This Paper Cited?