To correct for this, Essential Science Indicators estimates full-year scores for citations, papers and cites per paper for scientists, institutions, journals and countries. The process involves multiplying the actual values for the last five-year period in the time series by the appropriate factor from the table:

For example, if the Essential Science Indicators bimonthly update period is 2, and the counts for citations, papers and cites/paper are 20, 10 and 2.0 respectively, the full-year estimates would be 20x1.37 = 27.4 citations, 10x1.15 = 11.5 papers, and 2.0x1.19 = 2.4 cites per paper. After the last (6^th) bimonthly update of the year, the multipliers revert to 1 indicating that no estimation is needed since the year is complete.

The derivation of multipliers is based on the empirical observation that, across the entire database, the last year of a five-year citation window contributes on average 41% of the citations to the total for the period. The further approximation is made that the 41% of citations are spread evenly across the six bimonthly periods, although in a more sophisticated scheme, the later periods would contribute more than the earlier ones due to the widening citation window. It is also assumed is that the publication rate can be projected evenly, that is, each year will contribute the same number of papers. Thus, the estimate does not take into account whether an entity has an increasing or decreasing rate of publication or citation, or possible field differences in growth rates.