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The relationship between tweets, citations, and article views for PLOS ONE articles

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  • J. C. F. Winter

    (Delft University of Technology)

Abstract

An analysis of article-level metrics of 27,856 PLOS ONE articles reveals that the number of tweets was weakly associated with the number of citations (β = 0.10), and weakly negatively associated with citations when the number of article views was held constant (β = −0.06). The number of tweets was predictive of other social media activity (β = 0.34 for Mendeley and β = 0.41 for Facebook), but not of the number of article views on PubMed Central (β = 0.01). It is concluded that the scientific citation process acts relatively independently of the social dynamics on Twitter.

Suggested Citation

  • J. C. F. Winter, 2015. "The relationship between tweets, citations, and article views for PLOS ONE articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(2), pages 1773-1779, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:102:y:2015:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-014-1445-x
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-014-1445-x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    14. Hou, Jianhua & Yang, Xiucai, 2020. "Social media-based sleeping beauties: Defining, identifying and features," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
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