Random journals
- Journals
- Any journal
- Topics
- Genetics, Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Biotechnology, Synthetic Biology, Systems Biology, and Computational Biology
- Eligibility
- Abstract longer than 50 words; published within the last 3 years
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 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!
Citation context
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.
Some journals are known for publishing highly cited work. But if you look at the data, many publications still get relatively few citations, and only a few receive many. This results in a broad, skewed distribution with a long tail.
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To explore this, play with this interactive graph. Select a base dataset (random journals, 25 popular journals, 3 prestige journals) and then filter by journal or keywords to compare citation distributions.
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Analysis details
How to read the graphs
Use the controls below each graph to compare slightly smoothed one-citation bins with stepped five-citation bins. Colored x-axis ticks mark medians. The separate >100 bars collect outliers. Zoom clips the y-axis.
Dataset definitions
Publication metadata was fetched from OpenAlex via API with the following filters.
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, and eLife
- Sampling
- Equal number of publications from each journal
- Eligibility
- Biology topic; abstract longer than 50 words; published within the last 5 years
3 prestige journals
- Journals
- Cell, Nature, and Science
- Sampling
- Equal number of publications from each journal
- Eligibility
- Biology topic; abstract longer than 50 words; published within the last 5 years
What you are guessing
You are guessing which paper received more citations per year.
citations per year = total citations / years since publication
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 open catalog of scholarly papers, authors, and institutions. It is made by 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
About the project
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".
Support the project
If you like the project, share it or send feedback.