Skip to main content
Log in

Citation context analysis and aging patterns of journal articles in molecular genetics

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

To compare citation history and contextual “importance”, eleven highly cited articles, 4 slowly aging (Type 1) and 7 quickly aging (Type 2), were ranked using an aggregate citation context measure, the Mean Utility Index. Based on citations in late (PY 6 & 7) source articles, “methods” papers consistently ranked higher than papers cited for research results and theoretical implications, and Type 1 methods papers ranked above all Type 2 papers. A Type 1 paper representing an important theoretical concept could not be distinguished from Type 2 papers using citation context alone.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes and references

  1. J. ZIMAN,Public Knowledge: The Social Dimension of Science, NY, Cambridge University Press, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  2. K. SUBRAMANYAM,Scientific and Technical Resources, NY, Marcel Dekker, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  3. H. G. SMALL, Citation context analysis. In: B. J. DERVIN, M. J. VOIGHT (Eds)Progress in Communication Sciences, Norwood, NJ, ABLEX, Vol. 3, 1982, pp. 287–310.

    Google Scholar 

  4. B. CRONINThe Citation Process, London, England, Taylor Graham, 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  5. J. R. RAVETZ,Scientific Knowledge and its Social Problems, Oxford, England, Clarendon Press, 1971.

    Google Scholar 

  6. W. O. HAGSTROM,The Scientific Community, NY, Basic Books, 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  7. G. N. GILBERT, Referencing as persuasion,Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977) 113.

    Google Scholar 

  8. M. WEINSTOCK, Citation indexes, In:Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, NY, Marcel Dekker, Vol. 5, 1971, pp. 16–40.

    Google Scholar 

  9. H. G. SMALL, B. C. GRIFFITH. The structure of scientific literatures I: Identifying and graphing specialties,Science Studies, 4 (1974) 17.

    Google Scholar 

  10. E. GARFIELD, M. V. MALIN, H. SMALL, Citation data as science indicators, In: ELKANA et al. (Eds)Toward a Metric of Science: The Advent of Science Indicators, NY, John Wiley & Sons, 1978, pp. 179–207.

    Google Scholar 

  11. L. SMITH, Citation analysis,Library Trends, 23 (1981) 83.

    Google Scholar 

  12. M. LINE, Obsolescence and changes in the use of literature with time,Journal of Documentation, 30 (1974) 283.

    Google Scholar 

  13. J. VLACHY, Citation histories of scientific publications. The data sources,Scientometrics 7 (1985) 505.

    Google Scholar 

  14. E. R. STINSON, F. W. LANCASTER, Synchronous versus diachronous methods in the measurement of obsolescence by citation studies,Journal of Information Science, 13 (1987) 65.

    Google Scholar 

  15. K. W. McCAIN, The Communication of Research-Related Information in Genetics, paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for The Social Studies of Science, Worcester, MA. 21 Nov 1987.

  16. H. DOLMAN, H. BODEWITZ, Sedimentation of a scientific concept: The use of citation data,Social Studies of Science, 15 (1985) 507.

    Google Scholar 

  17. A. P. W. HODDER, C. BALOG, A citation study of significant papers in plate tectonics,Journal of Information Science, 9 (1985) 221.

    Google Scholar 

  18. A. FEIDLER, C. D. HURT, Stratospheric aerosols: The transfer of scientific information,Library and Information Science Research, 8 (1986) 243.

    Google Scholar 

  19. D. A. De STEPHANO, citation analysis and adaptive radiation,Scientometrics, 11 (1987) 43.

    Google Scholar 

  20. S. COLE, The growth of scientific knowledge: Theories of deviance as a case study, In:The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton, NY, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975, pp. 175–220.

    Google Scholar 

  21. I. RUFF, Citation analysis of a scientific career: A case study,Social Studies of Science, 9 (1979) 81.

    Google Scholar 

  22. In his “Current Comments” essays,GARFIELD has occasionally examined the citation profiles of seminal papers written by Nobel laureates or theirouevres. See, for example,Essays of an Information Scientist, 4 (1981) 609; 6 (1983) 413; 8 (1986) 416, 432.

  23. E. S. AVERSA,Citation Patterns of 400 Scientific Papers and their Relationship to Literature Aging, Unpublished dissertation, Philadelphia, Drexel University. 1984.

    Google Scholar 

  24. E. S. AVERSA, Citation patterns of highly cited papers and their relationship to literature aging: A study of the working literature,Scientometrics, 7 (1985) 383.

    Google Scholar 

  25. T. A. BROOKS, Private acts and public objects: An investigation of citer motives,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 36 (1985) 223.

    Google Scholar 

  26. A useful introduction to this and other genetic engineering techniques can be found in: R. W. OLD, S. B. PRIMROSE,Principles of Gene Manipulation: An Introduction to Genetic Engineering, CA, University of California Press, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  27. These types of errors have been the subject of citation analyses in their own right. See, for example, R. N. BROADUS, An investigation of the validity of bibliographic citations,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 34 (1983) 132., and S. E. COZZENS, Split citation identity: A case study from economics,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 33 (1982) 233.

    Google Scholar 

  28. B. C. PERITZ, A Classification of citation roles for the social sciences and related fields,Scientometrics, 5 (1983) 303.

    Google Scholar 

  29. M. J. MORAVCSIK, P. MURUGESAN, Some results on the function and quality of citations,Social Studies of Science, 5 (1975) 86. This was the first of a series of anlyses, in the physics literature.

    Google Scholar 

  30. D. E. CHUBIN, S. D. MOITRA, Content analysis of references: Adjunct or alternative to citation counting?Social Studies of Science, 5 (1975) 423.

    Google Scholar 

  31. C. OPPENHEIM, S. P. RENN, Highly cited old papers and the reasons why they continue to be cited,Journal of the-American Society for Information Science, 29 (1978) 225.

    Google Scholar 

  32. I. SPIEGEL-ROSING, I. SCHWIDETSKY, Comparative bibliometric profiles of physical anthropology and human genetics,Homo 27 (1976) 31; I. SPIEGEL-ROSING, Science studies: Bibliometric and content analysis,Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977) 97.

    Google Scholar 

  33. T. HODGES,Citation Indexing: Its Potential for Bibliographic Control. Unpublished dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  34. See, for example, the AIBS Style Manual, frequently cited in “instructions to authors” sections in Biology journals. CBE Style Manual Committee,Council of Biology Editors Style Manual: A Guide to Authors, Editors, and Publishers in the Biological Sciences, 4th. ed., American Institute of Biological Sciences, Arlington, VA, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  35. R. A. DAY,How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, Philadelphia PA: ISI Press, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  36. A. J. MEADOWS, The scientific paper as an archaeological artefact,Journal of Information Science, 11 (1987) 27.

    Google Scholar 

  37. H. VOOS, K. S. DAGAEV, Are all citations equal? or Did weOp. Cit. yourIdem?Journal of Academic Librarianship, 1 (1976) 19.

    Google Scholar 

  38. S. J. K. BERTRAM,The Relationship between Intra-document Citation Location and Citation Level, Unpublished dissertation, IL, University of Illinois, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  39. B. FINNEY,The Reference Characteristics of Scientific Texts. Unpublished dissertation, City University of London, Centre for Information Science, 1979. Cited in Ref. 8. M. WEINSTOCK, Citation indexes, In:Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, NY, Marcel Dekker, Vol. 5, 1971, pp. 16–40.

  40. G. HERLACH, Can retrieval of information from citation indexes be simplified?Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 29 (1978) 308.

    Google Scholar 

  41. S. BONZI, Characteristics of a literature as predictors of relatedness between cited and citing works,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 33 (1982) 208.

    Google Scholar 

  42. For information on index numbers, see entries on Index Numbers pp. 495–498; Statistical Techniques in Economics and Business, an Overview, pp. 886–893, In:Encyclopedia of Economics, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1982.

  43. Please note that there is no intended relationship between our use of “utility” and the economist's concept of utility. For a discussion of the latter concept, see the entry on Utility pp. 934–941, in:Encyclopedia of Economics, NY, McGraw-Hill, 1982.

  44. M. KOCHEN, Models of scientific output, In: Y. ELKANA et al. (Eds),Toward a Metric of Science: The Advant of Science Indicators. NY, John Wiley & Sons, 1978, pp. 97–136. See p. 127.

    Google Scholar 

  45. H. G. SMALL, Cited documents as concept symbols,Social Studies of Science, 8 (1978) 327.

    Google Scholar 

  46. H. SMALL, E. GREENLEE, Context analysis of a co-citation cluster: Recombinant-DNA,Scientometrics, 2 (1980) 277.

    Google Scholar 

  47. H. SMALL, The lives of a scientific paper, In: K. S. WARREN (Ed.),Selectivity in Information Systems: Survival of the Fittest, NY, Praeger Scientific, 1985, pp. 83–97.

    Google Scholar 

  48. S. E. COZZENS, Comparing the sciences: citation context analysis of papers from neuropharmacology and the sociology of science,Social Studies of Science, 15 (1985) 127.

    Google Scholar 

  49. See Ref. 23, p. 64.

    Google Scholar 

  50. E. GARFIELD, Citation frequency as a measure of research activity and performance,Essays of an Information Scientist, 1 (1977) 406.

    Google Scholar 

  51. B. C. GRIFFITH, H. SMALL, J. STONEHILL, S. DEY, The structure of scientific literature II: The macro- and micro-structure of science,Science Studies, 4 (1974) 339.

    Google Scholar 

  52. E. GARFIELD,Citation Indexing: Its Theory and Application in Science, Technology, and Humanities, NY, John Wiley & Sons, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  53. E. GARFIELD, The articles most cited in 1961–1982. 2. Another 100Citation Classics highlight the technology of science,Essays of an Information Scientist, 7 (1985) 218.

    Google Scholar 

  54. E. GARFIELD, The articles most cited in 1961–1982. 4. 100 AdditionalCitation Classics, Essays of an Information Scientist, 7 (1985) 306.

    Google Scholar 

  55. E. CARFIELD, The ‘Obliteration Phenomenon’ in science - and the advantage of being obliterated!Essays of an Information Scientist, 2 (1977) 396.

    Google Scholar 

  56. See quote from P. A. SHARP in ref. 55, p. 307.

    Google Scholar 

  57. E. GARFIELD, Uncitedness III — The importance of not being cited,Essays of an Information Scientist, 1 (1977) 413.

    Google Scholar 

  58. D. De SOLLA PRICE, Networks of scientific papers,Science, 149 (1965) 510.

    Google Scholar 

  59. See G. S. STENT, Prematurity and uniqueness in scientific discovery,Scientific American, 227 (1972) 84; H. V. WYATT, Knowledge and prematurity-journey from transformation to DNA,Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 18 (1961) 596.

    Google Scholar 

  60. S. COLE, Professional standing and the reception of scientific discoveries,American Journal of Sociology, 76 (1970) 286.

    Google Scholar 

  61. E. M. ROGERS,Diffusion of Innovations, 3rd ed., NY, MacMillan, 1983.

    Google Scholar 

  62. See, for example, W. GOFFMAN, Mathematical approach to the spread of scientific ideas —The history of mast cell research,Nature, 205 (1966) 449.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

McCain, K.W., Turner, K. Citation context analysis and aging patterns of journal articles in molecular genetics. Scientometrics 17, 127–163 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017729

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017729

Keywords

Navigation