It is a sobering fact that some 90% of papers that have been published in academic journals are never cited. Indeed, as many as 50% of papers are never read by anyone other than their authors, referees and journal editors. We know this thanks to citation analysis, a branch of information science in which researchers study the way articles in a scholarly field are accessed and referenced by others.
Citation analysis is, however, about much more than producing shock statistics. Along with peer review, it has over the past three decades been increasingly used to judge and quantify the importance of scientists and scientific research. Citation analysis is also the machinery behind journal "impact factors" – figures of merit that researchers take note of when deciding which journal to submit their work to so that it is read as widely as possible. Indeed, the output from citation studies is often the only way that non-specialists in governments and funding bodies – or even those in different scientific disciplines – can judge the importance of a piece of scientific research.
In the January issue of Physics World, Lokman I Meho discusses how citation analysis can be an invaluable tool for rating the validity of scientific papers – but also how it can be misleading.
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