ACS and scite Partner on Smart Citations

Information Industry News

Brooklyn, NY —August 2, 2022 

scite, an award-winning tool that helps students and researchers discover and understand research findings more efficiently through Smart Citations, has partnered with the American Chemical Society (ACS) to enhance the citation experience for its globally diverse readership.

Pioneered by scite, Smart Citations go beyond traditional citations by showing citation statements—the in-text sentences where references are used— the section they appear in the citing articles, and a classification indicating if the paper provides supporting or contrasting evidence to the cited claim from the referenced work. Smart Citations have been developed using sophisticated machine learning models that extract and analyze citation statements from full-text articles at scale. This information helps researchers quickly and easily see how and why an article has been cited and engaged with in subsequent research, providing a more nuanced and rich source of information than a simple citation count and list of cited articles without context.

To date, scite has partnered with over two dozen major publishers, analyzing and indexing over 1.1B citation statements extracted from more than 31M full-text articles. Smart Citations will be added to ACS articles, adding to the already 3M articles that display Smart Citations from other publishers like Wiley, The Royal Society, and The National Academy of Sciences.

In addition to enhancing the viewing experience for readers of ACS’ portfolio of journals, this partnership will also help ensure researchers are citing reliable work. ACS will pilot the scite Reference Check, a service that helps authors, editors, and peer reviewers validate that they are citing reliable studies. The Reference both identifies if references in manuscripts under submission cite a retracted study as well as shows how others have cited the work; ultimately, the service indicates if there is supporting or contrasting evidence to the references being used.

Josh Nicholson, co-founder and CEO of scite, says, “We’re proud to be working with ACS on the development and deployment of Smart Citations. Together, we can make research more discoverable, understandable, and ultimately reliable. ACS is a major publisher and a leader in the field, so it is great to work with them.”

“ACS is dedicated to delivering the broadest picture of the research published in our portfolio of journals, books, and other digital offerings,” says Jeff Lang, Director, Platform Development, ACS Publications. “We are enthused by this pilot with scite, which will provide a more accurate picture of an article’s impact. Together, we will provide the global scholarly community with a look under the microscope at how and why an article has been cited, enriching the experience and engagement with the research that we publish.”

About These Organizations

About scite

scite is a Brooklyn-based startup that helps researchers better discover and evaluate scientific articles through Smart Citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. Scite is used by researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.

About The American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.