Altmetric – How scientists fool themselves

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Title	How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop
Published by	Nature, October 2015
DOI	10.1038/526182a
Pubmed ID	26450039
Authors	Regina Nuzzo

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Twitter Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3,408 tweeters who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	722	21%
United Kingdom	346	10%
Canada	185	5%
Australia	115	3%
Spain	84	2%
Germany	70	2%
Netherlands	58	2%
France	55	2%
India	48	1%
Other	563	17%
Unknown	1162	34%

Demographic breakdown

Type	Count	As %
Members of the public	2145	63%
Scientists	984	29%
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals)	155	5%
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors)	121	4%
Unknown	3	<1%

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 1,047 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country	Count	As %
United States	10	<1%
Brazil	6	<1%
France	5	<1%
Germany	4	<1%
United Kingdom	4	<1%
Finland	3	<1%
Spain	3	<1%
Switzerland	3	<1%
Chile	2	<1%
Other	14	1%
Unknown	993	95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status	Count	As %
Student > Bachelor	189	18%
Student > Ph. D. Student	170	16%
Researcher	165	16%
Student > Master	91	9%
Unspecified	52	5%
Other	218	21%
Unknown	162	15%

Readers by discipline	Count	As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences	138	13%
Medicine and Dentistry	123	12%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology	80	8%
Psychology	72	7%
Nursing and Health Professions	60	6%
Other	362	35%
Unknown	212	20%

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2690. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 10 June 2023.

All research outputs

#2,474

of 23,981,346 outputs

Outputs from Nature

#261

of 93,408 outputs

Outputs of similar age

of 281,451 outputs

Outputs of similar age from Nature

of 1,079 outputs

Altmetric has tracked 23,981,346 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.

So far Altmetric has tracked 93,408 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 101.3. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.

Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 281,451 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.

We're also able to compare this research output to 1,079 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.

How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop

About this Attention Score

Mentioned by

Citations

Readers on

Twitter Demographics

Geographical breakdown

Demographic breakdown

Mendeley readers

Geographical breakdown

Demographic breakdown

Attention Score in Context