Chinese-language articles are not biased in citations: Evidences from Chinese-English bilingual journals in Scopus and Web of Science

• Chinese-language articles were not biased in citations compared with English-language articles.
• The existence and strength of citation bias largely depends upon the database and upon the language being analyzed.
• The findings suggest some implications for academic evaluation of Chinese-language or Chinese-English bilingual journals.

This paper examined the citation impact of Chinese- and English-language articles in Chinese-English bilingual journals indexed by Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). Two findings were obtained from comparative analysis: (1) Chinese-language articles were not biased in citations compared with English-language articles, since they received a large number of citations from Chinese scientists; (2) a Chinese-language community was found in Scopus, in which Chinese-language articles mainly received citations from Chinese-language articles, but it was not found in WoS whose coverage of Chinese-language articles is only one-tenth of Scopus. The findings suggest some implications for academic evaluation of journals including Chinese-language articles in Scopus and WoS.