What is Guess The Citations?
A free web game where you guess which research papers received more citations per year. The game explores why citation counts are a very limited measure of scientific impact.
How to Play
You will see the titles of two research papers. Guess which one has more citations per year. You have the option to see the abstract too. Time is limited, so trust your gut! Once you know the drill, go and tackle the special challenges!
Play in groups
Compete in groups by entering "group tags". You can do this when you play the first time, or later in settings or on the leaderboards page. Create direct links for events with your custom tag, https://guess-the-citations.org/play?tag=grouptag26, will prefill the group tag of new players with #grouptag26.
Background
Citation counts show which papers get noticed and cited, but this is heavily shaped by field, journal name, author reputation, hype, and other forces. If you consider the content of a study, only based on title and abstract, you will notice how difficult it can be to guess the citation counts.
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Analysis details
Publications were fetched from OpenAlex using the following three dataset filters:
Journal groupings
random journals
- any journal
- topics Genetics, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Biotechnology, Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology, Computational Biology
- abstract length > 50 words, to exclude editorials
- last 3 years.
25 popular journals
- journals: Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Nature Microbiology, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Immunology, Molecular Systems Biology, Nature Communications, Molecular Cell, Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Developmental Cell, Cell Systems, Cell Reports, Science, Science Advances, EMBO Journal, Genes & Development, RNA, Elife
- equal number publications from each journal
- topic Biology
- abstract length > 50 words, to exclude editorials
- last 5 years.
3 prestige journals (Cell/Nature/Science)
- journals: Cell, Nature, Science
- equal number publications from each journal
- topic Biology
- abstract length > 50 words, to exclude editorials
- last 5 years.
What you are guessing
You are guessing which paper received more citations per year.
This is calculated exactly based on days since publication / 365.25. Main caveat: this does not account for sub-field differences (biochemistry vs computational biology), or that older papers might have accumulated citations differently over decades.
Data Source
Publication data and citations are sourced from OpenAlex, an awesome free (with limits) and open catalog of scholarly papers, authors, and institutions. It is made by OurResearch, a nonprofit, dedicated to open science, and supported by Arcadia and Navigation Fund. Some publishers do not share abstracts openly or actively restrict their use, but this is the best openly available data source.
Inspired by
- Guess the Journal Impact Factor Challenge (Simmons & Raj, 2017)
- Guess the Correlation
- Foldit / Eterna (games-with-a-purpose)
About me
As a molecular biologist, I've seen how much weight is put on journal names and their impact factors, which are a consequence of citation counts. This project is my way to learn about this topic, about gamification, and web development. Grateful to early supporters: MM, AS, IL, GC, PW, SB, MS.
Disclaimer
This game is made by one person as a hobby project to explore the limitations of citation counts. It is not affiliated with ANY organization. The data is stored, but it will never be used to train a model, it will not be sold, it will not be used to display paper "rankings".
Your support
If you like this project, please share it now!