IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v8y2014i1p13-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the time evolution of received citations, in different scientific fields: An empirical study

Author

Listed:
  • Finardi, Ugo

Abstract

The time evolution of mean received citations is calculated on a sample of journals from two ISI subject categories (“Chemistry, multidisciplinary”, ISI Science Edition, and “Management”, ISI Social Science edition) with the use of an original methodology. Mean received citations are plotted against the time gap in years existing between publication of the cited article and received citations. For most Chemistry journals in the sample the maximum number of average received citations occurs two years after publication, and then a decrease is experimented. Some peculiar cases present a different trend. Management journals, conversely, do not present in most cases a peak of citations: average received citations instead grow from year of publication to the age of 10 years (maximum time gap studied). A subsample of journals show similar results for longer time series (up to 23 years). Medians of average received citations per year partly show a similar behavior. Results suggest that citedness follows very different trends in very different fields, and partly suggest why differences in Journal Impact Factor exist between different categories. At the end of the work conclusions are drawn, together with suggestions for future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Finardi, Ugo, 2014. "On the time evolution of received citations, in different scientific fields: An empirical study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 13-24.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:1:p:13-24
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2013.10.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157713000801
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2013.10.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bornmann, Lutz & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2010. "The citation speed index: A useful bibliometric indicator to add to the h index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 444-446.
    2. Guang Yu & Yi-Jun Li, 2010. "Identification of referencing and citation processes of scientific journals based on the citation distribution model," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 249-261, February.
    3. M.H. MacRoberts & B.R. MacRoberts, 2010. "Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom-cited influences," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 1-12, January.
    4. Finardi, Ugo, 2013. "Correlation between Journal Impact Factor and Citation Performance: An experimental study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 357-370.
    5. Erjen Van Nierop, 2009. "Why do statistics journals have low impact factors?," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 63(1), pages 52-62, February.
    6. E. Garfield & I. H. Sher, 1963. "New factors in the evaluation of scientific literature through citation indexing," American Documentation, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 195-201, July.
    7. Egghe, L. & Bornmann, L. & Guns, R., 2011. "A proposal for a First-Citation-Speed-Index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 181-186.
    8. Leo Egghe, 2000. "A Heuristic Study of the First-Citation Distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 48(3), pages 345-359, July.
    9. M.H. MacRoberts & B.R. MacRoberts, 2010. "Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom‐cited influences," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 1-12, January.
    10. Bornmann, Lutz & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2010. "Citation speed as a measure to predict the attention an article receives: An investigation of the validity of editorial decisions at Angewandte Chemie International Edition," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 83-88.
    11. Liu, Yuxian & Rousseau, Ronald, 2008. "Definitions of time series in citation analysis with special attention to the h-index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 202-210.
    12. Wolfgang Glänzel & Balázs Schlemmer & Bart Thijs, 2003. "Better late than never? On the chance to become highly cited only beyond the standard bibliometric time horizon," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 58(3), pages 571-586, November.
    13. Ugo Finardi, 2011. "Time relations between scientific production and patenting of knowledge: the case of nanotechnologies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(1), pages 37-50, October.
    14. Jerome K. Vanclay, 2009. "Bias in the journal impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 78(1), pages 3-12, January.
    15. Hamid Bouabid, 2011. "Revisiting citation aging: a model for citation distribution and life-cycle prediction," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(1), pages 199-211, July.
    16. Quentin L. Burrell, 2002. "The nth-citation distribution and obsolescence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(3), pages 309-323, March.
    17. Bornmann, Lutz & Schier, Hermann & Marx, Werner & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2012. "What factors determine citation counts of publications in chemistry besides their quality?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1), pages 11-18.
    18. Jerome K. Vanclay, 2012. "Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 211-238, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Delbianco, Fernando & Fioriti, Andrés & Hernandez-Chanto, Allan & Tohmé, Fernando, 2020. "A Markov-switching approach to the study of citations in academic journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    2. Lukun Zheng & Yuhang Jiang, 2022. "Combining dissimilarity measures for quantifying changes in research fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(7), pages 3751-3765, July.
    3. Marcelo Mendoza, 2021. "Differences in Citation Patterns across Areas, Article Types and Age Groups of Researchers," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-23, October.
    4. Naomi Fukuzawa & Takanori Ida, 2016. "Science linkages between scientific articles and patents for leading scientists in the life and medical sciences field: the case of Japan," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(2), pages 629-644, February.
    5. Cristina López-Duarte & Marta M. Vidal-Suárez & Belén González-Díaz, 2019. "Cross-national distance and international business: an analysis of the most influential recent models," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 173-208, October.
    6. Aaron Lercher & Lawrence Smolinsky, 2016. "Persistent value of older scientific journal articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(3), pages 1205-1220, September.
    7. Mike Thelwall & Pardeep Sud, 2021. "Do new research issues attract more citations? A comparison between 25 Scopus subject categories," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(3), pages 269-279, March.
    8. Ugo Finardi, 2017. "Long time series of highly cited articles: an empirical study," IRCrES Working Paper 201712, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY.
    9. Hu, Ya-Han & Tai, Chun-Tien & Liu, Kang Ernest & Cai, Cheng-Fang, 2020. "Identification of highly-cited papers using topic-model-based and bibliometric features: the consideration of keyword popularity," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
    10. Ugo Finardi, 2015. "Nanotechnologies for textiles, fabrics and clothing: an overview of the scientific literature on the topic," IRCrES Working Paper 201503, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY.
    11. Naomi Fukuzawa & Takanori Ida, 2014. "Science linkages focused on star scientists in the life and medical sciences: The case of Japan," Discussion papers e-14-006, Graduate School of Economics Project Center, Kyoto University.
    12. Mingkun Wei & Abdolreza Noroozi Chakoli, 2020. "Evaluating the relationship between the academic and social impact of open access books based on citation behaviors and social media attention," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2401-2420, December.
    13. Lin Zhang & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2017. "A citation-based cross-disciplinary study on literature ageing: part II—diachronous aspects," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1559-1572, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hu, Zewen & Wu, Yishan, 2014. "Regularity in the time-dependent distribution of the percentage of never-cited papers: An empirical pilot study based on the six journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 136-146.
    2. Mingers, John & Leydesdorff, Loet, 2015. "A review of theory and practice in scientometrics," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 246(1), pages 1-19.
    3. Hamid Bouabid & Vincent Larivière, 2013. "The lengthening of papers’ life expectancy: a diachronous analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 97(3), pages 695-717, December.
    4. Leo Egghe, 2007. "Probabilities for encountering genius, basic, ordinary or insignificant papers based on the cumulative nth citation distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(1), pages 167-181, January.
    5. Soo Jeung Lee & Christian Schneijderberg & Yangson Kim & Isabel Steinhardt, 2021. "Have Academics’ Citation Patterns Changed in Response to the Rise of World University Rankings? A Test Using First-Citation Speeds," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-19, August.
    6. Vanclay, Jerome K., 2013. "Factors affecting citation rates in environmental science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 265-271.
    7. Wen-Yau Cathy Lin, 2021. "Effects of open access and articles-in-press mechanisms on publishing lag and first-citation speed: a case on energy and fuels journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 4841-4869, June.
    8. Ugo Finardi, 2017. "Long time series of highly cited articles: an empirical study," IRCrES Working Paper 201712, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY.
    9. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    10. Jianhua Hou & Jiantao Ye, 2020. "Are uncited papers necessarily all nonimpact papers? A quantitative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1631-1662, August.
    11. Isabel Bernal, 2013. "Open Access and the Changing Landscape of Research Impact Indicators: New Roles for Repositories," Publications, MDPI, vol. 1(2), pages 1-22, July.
    12. McAleer, M.J. & Oláh, J. & Popp, J., 2018. "Pros and Cons of the Impact Factor in a Rapidly Changing Digital World," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI2018-11, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    13. Christin Katharina Kreutz & Premtim Sahitaj & Ralf Schenkel, 2020. "Evaluating semantometrics from computer science publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2915-2954, December.
    14. Lin Zhang & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2017. "A citation-based cross-disciplinary study on literature ageing: part II—diachronous aspects," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1559-1572, June.
    15. Péter Vinkler, 2012. "The Garfield impact factor, one of the fundamental indicators in scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 471-483, August.
    16. JingJing Zhang & Jiancheng Guan, 2017. "Scientific relatedness and intellectual base: a citation analysis of un-cited and highly-cited papers in the solar energy field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 141-162, January.
    17. Jiang, Zhuoren & Lin, Tianqianjin & Huang, Cui, 2023. "Deep representation learning of scientific paper reveals its potential scholarly impact," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    18. Ziqiang Zeng & Lantian Shi, 2021. "A two-dimensional journal classification method based on output and input factors: perspectives from citation and authorship related indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 3929-3964, May.
    19. Hui Fang, 2023. "A modification of citation-based journal indexes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(2), pages 1119-1132, February.
    20. Sten F Odenwald, 2020. "A citation study of earth science projects in citizen science," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-26, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:1:p:13-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.