A few weeks ago we quietly introduced a new sorting option for search results on APA PsycNET: Times Cited. This sorts search results using the “cited by” number – the number of other items on APA PsycNET that cite that particular document.
APA PsycNET search results sorted by Times Cited.
This is a great way to help ensure that you find important, or controversial, articles and papers on your topic. In the example above, sorting the search results by Times Cited brings papers from the 1960s through the 1990s into the first five search results. Most users probably won’t get far enough into the search results to find these if they sort their results by Year, and the Relevance option may or may not bring them far enough up in the search results.
Note that you can also sort items saved to My List, a feature of your My PsycNET account, by Times Cited. This feature has been available for several months, allowing us to pilot test the sorting algorithm.
Search Tip:
Remember that more recently published items haven’t been cited as much yet – if at all – and will be listed at the end of your search results when you sort by Times Cited. It’s smart to take a look at that newer research as well! You can do this by viewing the search results sorted by Year, which displays the most recent items first.
Will this feature eventually be available on other platforms such as EBSCO?
Hi Mark! This feature is not currently available on EBSCOhost, OvidSP, or ProQuest – it’s a feature of the platform itself, and so it’s up to each of them to develop and implement. I encourage you to ask next time you’re talking to a rep – we started working on this because we were getting user requests. I’ll pass this on to get funneled to our EBSCO contact, but I know it’s particularly useful for them to hear from you directly.