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Citation behavior in popular scientific papers: what is behind obscure citations? The case of ethnobotany

Author

Listed:
  • Marcelo Alves Ramos

    (Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco)

  • Joabe Gomes Melo

    (Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco)

  • Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque

    (Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco)

Abstract

Citation studies have become an important tool for understanding scientific communication processes, as they enable the identification of several characteristics of information-retrieval behavior. This study seeks to analyze citation behavior using two popular ethnobotany articles, and our analysis is guided by the following question: when an author references a work, is he pointing out the work’s theoretical contribution, or is bias a factor in citing this reference? Citation analysis reveals an interesting phenomenon, as the majority of citing texts do not consider the theoretical contributions made by the articles cited. Two possible conclusions can be drawn from this scenario: (1) citing authors read the original texts that they cite only superficially, and (2) the works cited are not read by the vast majority of people who reference them. Thus, it is clear that even with sufficient access to reference texts; ethnobotanical studies highlight elements less relevant to the research and reproduce discussions in a non-reflective manner.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcelo Alves Ramos & Joabe Gomes Melo & Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque, 2012. "Citation behavior in popular scientific papers: what is behind obscure citations? The case of ethnobotany," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(3), pages 711-719, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:92:y:2012:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-012-0662-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-012-0662-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. B. C. Peritz, 1992. "On the objectives of citation analysis: Problems of theory and method," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 43(6), pages 448-451, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Iman Tahamtan & Lutz Bornmann, 2019. "What do citation counts measure? An updated review of studies on citations in scientific documents published between 2006 and 2018," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(3), pages 1635-1684, December.
    2. Maarten Wesel & Sally Wyatt & Jeroen Haaf, 2014. "What a difference a colon makes: how superficial factors influence subsequent citation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1601-1615, March.
    3. Juliana Loureiro Almeida Campos & André Sobral & Josivan Soares Silva & Thiago Antonio Sousa Araújo & Washington Soares Ferreira-Júnior & Flávia Rosa Santoro & Gilney Charll Santos & Ulysses Paulino A, 2016. "Insularity and citation behavior of scientific articles in young fields: the case of ethnobiology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1037-1055, November.
    4. Xiaoyan Jia & Xufei Tan & Yuehong Zhang, 2014. "Replication of the methods section in biosciences papers: is it plagiarism?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 337-345, January.
    5. Latefa Ali Dardas & Malik Sallam & Amanda Woodward & Nadia Sweis & Narjes Sweis & Faleh A. Sawair, 2023. "Evaluating Research Impact Based on Semantic Scholar Highly Influential Citations, Total Citations, and Altmetric Attention Scores: The Quest for Refined Measures Remains Illusive," Publications, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, January.
    6. Martin Ricker, 2017. "Letter to the Editor: About the quality and impact of scientific articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1851-1855, June.

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