What is a Good H-Index? Hirsch reckons that after 20 years of research, an h-index of 20 is good, 40 is outstanding, and 60 is truly exceptional. In his paper, Hirsch shows that successful scientists do, indeed, have high h-indices: 84% of Nobel Prize winners in physics, for example, had an h-index of at least 30.

An h-index is calculated as the number of papers with a citation number ≥ h. An h-index of 3 hence means that the author has published at least three articles, of which each has been cited at least three times.

If you use Google Scholar, you can get citations for articles in the search result list. Copy and paste a formatted citation (APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Vancouver) or use one of the links to import into your bibliography management tool. Click on the Cite link next to your item. Select your citation style.

Using your Google Scholar Citations account, you can see the citation counts for your publications and have GS calculate your h-index. (You can also search Google Scholar by author name and the title of an article to retrieve citation information for a specific article.)