Cited reference searching: comparisons

I thought it would be interesting to look at how Google Scholar, the Web of Science, and SCOPUS fared in head-to-head competition in cited reference searching. For an explanation of cited reference searching see Cited Reference Searching (July 6).

I chose four articles by Yale School of Medicine authors and using each of the three databases, looked at the 'times cited' or 'cited by' fields. I compared the numbers in the chart below.




If you're wondering what that number in parentheses on the Web of Science line is for, it simply indicates how many people cited the article incorrectly... in most cases the page number was slightly off.

FYI
Here's the deets for the four articles:

Inzucchi SE. Oral antihyperglycemic therapy for type 2 diabetes: scientific review. JAMA. 2002, 287(3):360-372.

Kazdin AE, Weisz JR. Identifying and developing empirically supported child and adolescent treatments. J Consult Clin Psychol. 1998, 27(2):217-36.

Mellman I, Steinman RM. Dendritic cells: specialized and regulated antigen processing machines. Cell. 2001, 106(3):255-8.

Tinetti ME, Baker DI, McAvay G, Claus EB, Garrett P, Gottschalk M, Koch ML, Trainor K, Horwitz RI. A multifactorial intervention to reduce the risk of falling among elderly people living in the community. N Engl J Med. 1994, 331(13):821-7.