The links on this page have been selected to help researchers to find useful information on the library website and tools relating to researchers
If you are just starting your PhD you will also find the Study Advice guide for research postgraduates useful.
After your research output is published, you'll want to track attention to it from your peers and possibly from the general public (depending on what type of research you are working on).
Immediate impact
To track immediate impact, you can use tools such as Altmetric Explorer and Plum Analytics (via Scopus). These tools pick up attention from social media and news platforms. Your publisher may also show downloads and views of your article on the journal website.
Longer term impact
For longer term impact, tracking citations to your work can be interesting. Citations are often used as a measure of a researcher's or institution's impact and are often part of international league tables.
Track citations to your research outputs via tools such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, or Dimensions. If someone is citing you, they may be interested in your next paper.
If your output has been added to an institutional repository, such as CentAUR, you can also track downloads of your work from the repository.
Scopus gives references to peer-reviewed literature in all subject areas. It includes journal articles (including 'in press' items), books, conference proceedings and patents.
It is possible to search for topics, authors (including by ORCID ID), author affiliation and funders.
Extensive analytical tools also allow you to:
-analyse your search results by year, source, author, affiliation, country or territory, document type and subject area
-compare journal impact to help you decide where to publish
-see the citation impact and scholarly community engagement for an article
-analyse the citation trend for any given article, set of results or for a list of author documents
-view an author profile to analyse and track an individual's citation history
Help and guidance
Scopus Quick Reference Guide (PDF)
Tutorial of creating alerts
Scopus learn & support site
Web of Science gives access to a range of databases which can be searched individually or simultaneously:
-BIOSIS Previews - biological sciences
-Current Contents Connect
-Data Citation Index - research data from international repositories
-Derwent Innovations Index - patents in engineering
-FSTA (Food Science and Technology Abstracts)
-Medline - biomedical sciences
-Web of Science Core Collection - made up of the Arts and Humanities, Science, and Social Sciences Citation Indexes, plus a number of other databases
The cross-search also includes open access journals and open archive repositories.
Also available via Web of Science:
-JCR (Journal Citation Reports)
Help and guidance
Web of Science Training Portal
It is unclear which publishers are included in Google Scholar, so it shouldn't be used as your only source for a comprehensive literature search. For references to reliable, academic sources search our Summon discovery service or databases covering your subject.
Link to our full-text
You can set your preferences on Google Scholar to show links to full-text articles in all of our e-journals.
1) Click on the three lines on the top left of the home screen.
2) Select 'Settings'.
3) Select 'Library Links' on the left of the screen.
4) In the search box type 'Reading' and select the 'Reading University Library - Full-Text @ Reading' option.
5) Save your settings.
When you do a search, look for a 'Full-Text @ Reading' link to the right of references in your results list. This indicates that we have a subscription which will give you access to the article. Click on this link to access the full-text.
If the 'Full-text @ Reading' link does not appear next to a reference it indicates that it isn't covered by our subscriptions and you probably won't be able to access the article.
If you are off-campus you will need to login to access the articles. You will usually be prompted to login as soon as you click on the link to the article. If this doesn't happen you will need to look for an institutional or Shibboleth login link once you reach the journal's website. For more guidance see Accessing e-journals.
Google Scholar Button
Google have produced a plugin for Chrome, Firefox and Safari which allows you to easily search for and cite articles. Highlight the title of an article in the page you are reading and then click the Scholar button and it will search for the article on Google Scholar in a pop up window. To get a formatted reference for a search result press the quote button next to it and the reference will appear in three different styles.
To make the most of this tool set up the University of Reading as a 'Library Link' using the instructions above.