  Web of Science and Scopus are two world-leading and competing citation
databases. By using the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences
Citation Index, this paper conducts a comparative, dynamic, and empirical study
focusing on the use of Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus in academic papers
published during 2004 and 2018. This brief communication reveals that although
both Web of Science and Scopus are increasingly used in academic papers, Scopus
as a new-comer is really challenging the dominating role of WoS. Researchers
from more and more countries/regions and knowledge domains are involved in the
use of these two databases. Even though the main producers of related papers
are developed economies, some developing economies such as China, Brazil and
Iran also act important roles but with different patterns in the use of these
two databases. Both two databases are widely used in meta-analysis related
studies especially for researchers in China. Health/medical science related
domains and the traditional Information Science & Library Science field stand
out in the use of citation databases.
