LibGuides: Faculty Scholarship Support: Increasing Scholarly Impact

Ask a Law Librarian

The reference librarians at the Ross-Blakley Law Library are happy to help you find or navigate research resources. Librarians are available 9am-4pm Monday-Thursday and 9am-2pm on Friday.

Reference: (480) 965-7161
Email us now!

Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (COL) Students

Make an Appointment with a Law Librarian: COL students can make individual appointments with law librarians for one-on-one assistance by submitting this online request form. Appointments are available in-person, by phone, or via Zoom.
Group Research Training with a Law Librarian: This is an opportunity for groups of three or more COL students to receive personalized research instruction on any legal research topic. The Law Library's expert reference librarians will meet with your group and provide training to meet your research needs. Group trainings can be held in-person or via Zoom.
Chat with a Law Librarian: COL students can connect with law librarians via LibChat during reference hours.

Tips on Posting to Open Access Repositories

Here are some general tips on posting to platforms like SSRN:

Craft detailed abstracts (at least 275 words)
Include descriptive keywords (at least 6 terms)
Favor specific keywords over general keywords (e.g., "First Amendment" is general, while "compelled speech" is specific); inserting keywords directly into the title helps Google index the article
Make sure that your author agreement allows you to post preprints and the final version
Post preprints early and replace them with the final version shortly after publication
When posting preprints, encourage citation to the final version by including language like "Please do not cite to this preprint without the express permission of the author"
Verify that the metadata embedded within your article is correct
Link to articles on social media, especially Twitter; also consider linking to articles from your blog, personal website, or email

Adapted from:

Taryn Marks & Avery Le, Increasing Article Findability Online: The Four Cs of Search Engine Optimization, 109 Law Libr. J. 83 (2017)
Karen L. Wallace, Rebecca Lutkenhaus & David B. Hanson, Assessing HeinOnline as a Source of Scholarly Impact Metrics, 114 Law Libr. J. 395 (2022)
Jessica Lynn Wherry, Tools for Improving Distribution, Discussion, and Downloads: An Informed Approach to Submitting Legal Scholarship to SSRN, 100 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 223 (2022)
Rob Willey & Melanie Knapp, SSRN's Impact on Citations to Legal Scholarship and How to Maximize It, 45 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 475 (2023)

Characteristics that Correlate to Increased Citations in Legal Scholarship

Using over 250,000 law review articles published over a five-year period, Rob Willey and Melanie Knapp analyzed citation patterns and their relation to characteristics such as title length, number of authors, article length, publication format, etc. to derive characteristics that correlate to increased citations in legal scholarship. Select findings are summarized in the table below. Rob Willey & Melanie Knapp, How to Increase Citations to Legal Scholarship, 18 Ohio St. Tech. L. J. 157 (2021).

Recommendation	Details	More Details
DO — Write long articles	Top articles averaged 63 pages per article. The most frequently occurring page lengths for top articles were 68 and 66 pages respectively. 79 percent of top articles were between 36-90 pages. By comparison, less cited articles averaged 27 pages, per article and 72 percent ranged between 2-35 pages.	Page 174
DO — Keep titles short	Top articles averaged 52 characters per title. The most frequently occurring title lengths for top articles were 27 and 32 characters respectively. Only 6.8 percent of top article titles had over 100 characters. By comparison, less cited articles averaged 70 characters per title and 18 percent had over 100 characters per title.	Page 188
DON'T — Use colons in your title	Only 32 percent of top articles had a colon in the title. Comparatively, 55 percent of less cited articles had a colon in the title.	Page 189
DO — Write on a popular/timely topic	Articles on trending topics appear to garner more citations per article than articles on other topics.	Page 200
CONSIDER — Publishing in widely accessible journals	Limited data indicates that journals available on Hein have more citations per article than those with embargoes or not available.	Page 209
DO — Publish in a top journal	37 percent of top articles were published in one of 2018 W&L Law Journal Rankings top-ten journals. Only 4 percent of less cited articles were published in one of 2018 W&L Law Journal Rankings top-ten journals.	Page 212
CONSIDER — Publishing with a co-author	Our data only showed a slight difference in number of authors per paper between different segments, but other researchers have found publishing with a co-author to be beneficial.	Page 215