Characteristics of papers that affect citations in the Journal of Fish Biology

Identifying the factors that influence the citation of articles helps authors improve the impact and reach of their research. Analysis of publications in the Journal of Fish Biology between 2008 and 2021 revealed that variables such as the number of keywords, abstract length, number of authors, and page length were associated with higher impact papers. These trends applied to both review and regular papers. These findings suggest that papers that are more informative, have higher numbers of authors, and have more keywords are more likely to be cited. Adoption of some simple "best-practice" behaviors can improve the likelihood that a paper is cited.