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Overcitation and overrepresentation of review papers in the most cited papers

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  • Miranda, Ruben
  • Garcia-Carpintero, Esther

Abstract

Review papers tend to be cited more frequently than regular research articles. This fact, together with the continuous increase of the share of reviews in scientific literature, can have important consequences for the measurement of individuals’ research output, usually based on citation analysis. However, studies evaluating the differences in citations of review papers compared to original research articles are almost non-existing in the literature. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the overcitation and overrepresentation of review papers in the most cited papers of the 35 largest subject categories in Science Citation Index-Expanded. Results indicate the average citations received by reviews depends largely on the research area considered, varying from 1.34 to 6.74 times the citations received by original research articles (average value is 2.95). Correlated with this overcitation, there is an important overrepresentation of reviews in the most cited papers, this overrepresentation being greater when the most highly cited papers are considered, i.e. 0.05% and 0.1% most cited papers, where the share of reviews have increased from 16 to 18% in 1990 to around 40% in 2010. Interestingly, the overcitation and overrepresentation in the most cited papers is more important in the areas with the lowest shares of reviews in total publications.

Suggested Citation

  • Miranda, Ruben & Garcia-Carpintero, Esther, 2018. "Overcitation and overrepresentation of review papers in the most cited papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1015-1030.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:12:y:2018:i:4:p:1015-1030
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2018.08.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Kathleen Rodenburg & Michael Rowan & Andrew Nixon & Julia Christensen Hughes, 2022. "The Misalignment of the FT50 with the Achievement of the UN’s SDGs: A Call for Responsible Research Assessment by Business Schools," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-33, August.
    5. Petr Praus, 2023. "Empirical relationship between the number of review and research articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2201-2209, April.
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    7. Kaile Gong & Juan Xie & Ying Cheng & Vincent Larivière & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2019. "The citation advantage of foreign language references for Chinese social science papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1439-1460, September.
    8. Clemens Blümel & Alexander Schniedermann, 2020. "Studying review articles in scientometrics and beyond: a research agenda," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(1), pages 711-728, July.
    9. Sun, Zhuanlan & Liu, Sheng & Li, Yiwei & Ma, Chao, 2023. "Expedited editorial decision in COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
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