FAQ Question

What are Highly Influential Citations?

Semantic Scholar identifies citations where the cited publication has a significant impact on the citing publication, making it easier to understand how publications build upon and relate to each other. Influential citations are determined utilizing a machine-learning model analyzing a number of factors including the number of citations to a publication, and the surrounding context for each. You can read more about our approach in “Identifying Meaningful Citations”.

Note: Identification as highly influential relies on our access to the full-text of the citing paper. Our publisher partnerships and open access PDF extraction provide strong coverage; however, some influential papers may not be designated as such due full-text access limitations.