Overview
Citations follow readers, and readers follow access and relevance. A paper behind a paywall, described with vague keywords, with no shared data and no public summary, starts at a disadvantage. None of these problems require gaming the system; they require a plan and some routine habits.
We review your publication record and current practice, then build a strategy suited to your field and goals: green and gold open-access options, repository deposits, discoverable titles and abstracts, data and code sharing, talks and networks, and communication to audiences beyond academia. We also help you track outcomes responsibly, including non-citation impact such as policy mentions or practitioner use.
We draw a firm line at manipulation. We do not join or organize citation exchanges, add irrelevant self-citations, write reviews designed to harvest citations, or buy followers or downloads. These practices are treated as misconduct by publishers and ethics bodies and can lead to retractions and damaged reputations.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Early-career researchers building a track record for jobs, fellowships or promotion
- Faculty preparing tenure, promotion or research-assessment cases that require evidence of reach
- Grant holders who promised dissemination and impact activities to a funder
- Researchers whose well-regarded papers are rarely cited or hard to find
- Research groups and departments wanting a shared, ethical visibility policy
Common problems we help with
- Your papers are behind paywalls and you do not know what you are allowed to share
- Search engines and databases do not surface your work for obvious queries
- Colleagues in neighboring fields have not heard of work that is relevant to them
- Your promotion case needs evidence of impact beyond citation counts
- You have been invited to join a 'citation exchange' group and are unsure how risky it is
- Funders ask for open access, data sharing and dissemination and you are unsure how to comply
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Impact baseline: where your work is available, how it is found, who cites and uses it, and gaps
- Open-access options: rights retention, green deposit of accepted manuscripts, gold or diamond venues, and funder and institutional requirements
- Repository strategy: institutional repositories, subject repositories and preprint servers
- Data, code and materials sharing with persistent identifiers (for example via Zenodo, OSF or discipline repositories)
- Discoverability review of titles, abstracts, keywords and metadata on past and upcoming papers
- A dissemination plan: conferences, seminars, networks, newsletters, social platforms and practitioner or policy channels
- Responsible metrics guidance for reporting citations, altmetrics and qualitative impact evidence
- Integrity review of citation practices, including appropriate self-citation
Not included
- Citation rings, citation stacking, reciprocal citation agreements or coercive citation of any kind
- Adding irrelevant self-citations or asking co-authors to cite unrelated work
- Buying downloads, followers, reads or altmetric attention
- Posting publisher PDFs where your agreement does not allow it
- Any promise of citation counts, h-index gains or rankings
What you receive
- Impact baseline report
- An audit of availability, discoverability and use for your recent outputs, with priorities for action.
- Open-access and sharing plan
- For each paper, what version you may share, where, and under what license, with funder and institutional requirements mapped.
- Dissemination calendar
- A realistic twelve-month plan of activities matched to your audiences and time available.
- Impact evidence template
- A structure for recording citations, reuse, policy mentions, media and practitioner engagement for applications and reports.
How it works
Define goals
We discuss who you want to reach (other researchers, practitioners, policymakers, the public) and what success would look like for you.
Audit
We review where your work lives, how it is described and how it is currently used.
Plan
We build a prioritized strategy, beginning with low-effort, high-return actions such as repository deposits and metadata fixes.
Implement together
We support deposits, profile updates, abstracts, summaries and outreach materials, as agreed.
Review
After an agreed period, we review what changed and adjust the plan.
Legitimate levers for reach and use
- Green open access
- Depositing the accepted manuscript in an institutional or subject repository, within your publisher's policy or under a rights-retention statement, so anyone can read it.
- Gold and diamond open access
- Publishing open access at the journal, with or without article-processing charges, often supported by institutional agreements. We help you check eligibility and journal legitimacy.
- Open data, code and materials
- Sharing datasets, analysis code and instruments with DOIs and clear licenses, which lets others reuse and cite them and strengthens trust in your findings.
- Discoverability
- Titles that name the actual topic, abstracts that state findings, keywords that match how people search, and consistent author names linked to ORCID.
- Targeted dissemination
- Presenting where potential users gather, sharing summaries with relevant networks, and writing plain-language pieces or practitioner briefings.
- Responsible metrics
- Reporting indicators with their source and date, combining them with qualitative evidence, and following principles such as DORA and the Leiden Manifesto.
Access is the first lever
If readers cannot open your paper, they are less likely to read, use or cite it. Many authors have more sharing rights than they realize: most publishers allow some form of self-archiving of the accepted manuscript, sometimes after an embargo, and many funders and institutions have rights-retention policies that make immediate sharing possible. We check the specific terms for each of your papers rather than relying on general assumptions.
Why we will not manipulate citations
Citation rings (groups that agree to cite each other), citation stacking between journals, excessive or irrelevant self-citation, and reviewers or editors demanding citations to their own work are all recognized forms of citation manipulation. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) describes references added only to increase citations as manipulation, and publishers and indexing databases investigate unusual citation patterns.
The consequences can include retractions, removal of journals from indexes, and lasting reputational damage. Beyond the risk, manipulated citations do not create what committees and funders actually want to see: evidence that your research is used. We focus exclusively on strategies that produce real readers.
- Cite your own earlier work when it is directly relevant, and no more
- Decline invitations to reciprocal citation groups
- Report coercive citation requests to the editor confidentially
Impact beyond citations
Many assessment systems and funders now ask for evidence of wider impact: influence on policy, practice, industry, teaching or public understanding. This evidence is easier to gather if you plan for it from the start, for example by keeping records of briefings, requests for your data, media coverage and adoption of your tools. We help you build a simple record that feeds promotion cases and grant reports.
Matching effort to goals
Not everyone needs a social media presence or a blog. For some researchers, depositing papers, sharing code and presenting at two well-chosen meetings a year is the entire strategy. For others, working with practitioners or policymakers is central. The plan should fit your field, career stage and available time, or it will not be sustained.
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Sample impact baseline excerpt
A mid-career education researcher with 22 articles wanted stronger evidence of reach for a promotion case. The excerpt is invented to illustrate our format.
Access
Only 6 of 22 articles were openly available. For 13 of the remaining 16, publisher policies allowed the accepted manuscript to be deposited in the institutional repository immediately or after an embargo that has already passed.
Discoverability
Three highly relevant articles had titles built around a program acronym that practitioners do not search for; abstracts did not state findings. Recommendation: add plain-language summaries in the repository records and use descriptive keywords.
Wider use
Two classroom tools from the research are used by teachers but are not citable. Recommendation: deposit them in a repository with DOIs and a license so use can be tracked and credited.
Illustrative, invented example. Real recommendations depend on your publications, rights and goals.
What you’ll need to provide
- Your CV or publication list, including DOIs
- Publisher agreements or knowledge of the licenses your papers were published under
- Funder and institutional open-access or data policies that apply to you
- Your goals and the audiences you most want to reach
- Realistic time you can give to dissemination each month
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Size of your publication record to audit
- Depth of the plan: quick review, full strategy or ongoing support
- Number of papers needing open-access rights checks and deposits
- Whether communication materials (summaries, briefings, talks) are included
- Individual versus group or departmental scope
Turnaround depends on
- Availability of publisher agreements and license information
- Repository processing times at your institution
- Deadlines such as promotion files or grant reports
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Can you increase my citations?
We can remove barriers that stop people finding and reading your work, and that tends to increase genuine use over time. We do not promise specific citation counts or rankings, and we never use manipulation.
Is self-citation wrong?
No. Citing your own relevant earlier work is normal. It becomes a problem when citations are added only to raise counts. We help you judge the difference.
Someone invited me to a group that cites each other's papers. Is that allowed?
Reciprocal citation agreements are a form of citation manipulation and can lead to serious consequences, including retractions. We recommend declining.
Do I have to pay for open access to increase visibility?
Not necessarily. Green open access, depositing your accepted manuscript in a repository, is usually free, and diamond open-access journals do not charge authors. Your institution may also have agreements that cover charges.
Which metrics should I put in my promotion file?
Follow your institution's guidance first. Where you have a choice, pair citation data (with source and date) with qualitative evidence of use, and avoid relying on journal impact factors to judge individual papers.