2.4.4 The number of citations for my paper is too low

Publish or Perish uses Google Scholar data to calculate its citation metrics. Google Scholar's processing is automatic (unlike ISI's that involves manual handling and checking, with the associated price tag) and hence occasional errors or omissions do occur.

This may be due to:

• Incorrect or sloppy referencing of your paper by others. Try to find the referencing works to see if this is the case.
• References in older journals or in journals that are not available online. Google Scholar only uses online information; if your paper or the references to it are not online, they will be omitted.
• References in journals to which Google Scholar has no access because of the journals publishers' policy.

For more information limitations of Google Scholar, see Chapter 13 which discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the different data sources for citation analyses.