Are others using software you’ve written in their research and citing it as you want it to be cited? If not, this poster will help! Software can be cited in different ways, some good, and some not good at all for tracking and counting citations in indexers such as ADS and Google Scholar. Generally, indexers need to match citations to resources, such as journal articles, they ingest. There are several reasons why your code might not be cited well (in a trackable/countable way). One common reason is the lack of clear and explicit instructions on a code’s download site. Most astro code sites don’t list a preferred citation method! Make it easy for people to cite your software by listing a (good! trackable!) preferred citation method where others can easily find it. Creating a standard software metadata file, such as a CITATION.cff or codemeta.json, and adding it to the root of your code repo is easy to do with the ASCL’s metadata file creation overlay (see handout below), and will help out anyone wanting to give you credit for your computational method, whether it’s a huge carefully-written and tested package, or a short quick-and-dirty-but-oh-so-useful code.

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