Indirect‐collective referencing (ICR) in the elite journal literature of physics. II. A literature science study on the level of communications

In the author's three previous articles dealing with the ICR phenomenon (JASIS, 49, 1998, 477–481; 50, 1999, 1284–1294; JASIST, 52, 2001, 201–211) the nature, life course, and importance of this phenomenon of scientific literature was demonstrated. It was shown that the quantity of nonindexed indirect‐collective references in The Physical Review now alone exceeds many times over the quantity of formal references listed in the Science Citation Index as “citations.” It was shown that the ICR phenomenon is present in all the 44 elite physics journals of a representative sample of this literature. The bibliometrically very heterogeneous sample is very homogeneous regarding the presence and frequency of the ICR phenomenon. However, no real connection could be found between the simple degree of documentedness and the presence and frequency of the ICR phenomenon on the journal level of the sample. The present article reports the findings of the latest ICR investigation carried out on the level of communications of the representative sample. Correlation calculations were carried out in the stock of all 458 communications containing the ICR phenomenon as a statistical population, and within this population also in the groups of communications of the “normal” and the “letter” journals, and the “short communications.” The correlation analysis did not find notable statistical correlation between the simple and specific degree of documentedness of a communication and the number of works cited in it by ICR act(s) either in the total population or in the selected groups. There is no correlation either statistical or real (i.e., cause‐and‐effect) between the documentedness of scientific communications made by their authors and the presence and intensity of the ICR method used by their authors. However, in reality there exists a very strong connection between these two statistically independent variables: both depend on the referencing author, on his/her subjectivity and barely limited subjective free will. This subjective free will shapes the stock of the formal‐direct references of scientific communications, thereby placing the achievements cited in this way and their creators into the (indexed) showcase of present Big Science. The same free will decides on the use or nonuse of the ICR method, and in the case of use also on the intensity with which the method is used.