Essay: The citation performance of journals such as Advanced Materials can now be analysed in detail with the aid of a database available from the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI). Answers can be found to questions such as which papers have been cited the most, which authors are most consistently cited, and which institutions have been the most prolific; that is, which articles, by which authors, and from which countries or companies have been responsible for a particular journal's citation performance? Examples are given in the case of Advanced Materials.