Abstract-and-index databases also track how often papers are cited, and it is through this citation analysis that you can get a sense of what people have written and what, based on the citations, are considered either foundational papers in the field or are new enough to be necessary to a review of the current trends. This citation data can be used to analyze scholarly research in many ways, including by topic, author, affiliation, publication, time period, and other factors. When looking for articles for a review article (or literature review), using Scopus is the best way to make sure you're reading the articles you should be.
Scopus includes a few very useful ways to analyze articles in groups, either as a collection of search results or as the articles that all cite a particular article. Here is an image of the "Documents by year" graph for articles in a search, showing the how many articles per year were published on that topic.
Scopus' journal-level metrics include the following:
Scopus metrics:
PlumX altmetrics (tracking article activity online)
h-index and h-graph: "A researcher's performance based on career publications, as measured by the lifetime number of citations that each published article receives; h-indices indicate a balance between productivity (scholarly output) and citation impact (citation count)."
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