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Citation Graph

The Citation Graph page at /citations displays an interactive paper-level citation network rendered using Cytoscape.js. Unlike the Knowledge Graph, which maps concepts and entities, the Citation Graph maps the relationships between papers themselves.

Building the graph

CitationPaperSelector

Use the CitationPaperSelector at the top of the page to choose one or more seed papers from your library. The control is a multi-select search field — type a title or author name to find papers. The graph is built starting from the papers you select here.

Depth slider

The depth slider controls how many hops of citation relationships to include:

  • 1 hop — shows the seed papers and all papers they directly cite or are cited by.
  • 2 hops — extends the graph to include papers cited by (or citing) the first-hop papers.

Deeper graphs can become dense; start with 1 hop and extend to 2 when you want a broader view.

FetchCitationsButton

Click Fetch citations to build the graph from the selected seeds and depth. If citation data for a seed paper has not yet been fetched, this button triggers the backend citation-fetch job. Depending on the size of the network, fetching may take a few seconds.

Graph layout

Layout options — GraphControls

The GraphControls panel provides four layout algorithms:

Layout Best for
cose General-purpose force-directed layout; good for medium-sized networks
breadthfirst Tree-like radial layout; highlights citation chains clearly
circle Nodes evenly spaced on a circle; useful for small, dense networks
concentric Concentric rings; useful for showing structural layers in the citation network

Switch between layouts without re-fetching the citation data.

Pan and zoom are available via mouse/trackpad directly on the canvas.

Node types

Node style Meaning
Blue A paper that is in your library
Grey (stub) A cited paper that has been referenced in citation data but has not been fetched or saved to your library

Clicking a blue node navigates to that paper's Paper Detail page. Clicking a grey stub node shows available metadata (title, DOI if known) and offers an option to fetch and save the paper to your library.

Edge labels

Edges represent citation relationships. An edge labelled "influential" indicates that the citing paper has been flagged as making a significant intellectual contribution to the cited work, as determined by the Semantic Scholar is_influential signal.

Graph statistics

GraphStats — a summary panel showing the number of nodes and edges currently visible in the graph.