IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/infome/v8y2014i1p136-146.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regularity in the time-dependent distribution of the percentage of never-cited papers: An empirical pilot study based on the six journals

Author

Listed:
  • Hu, Zewen
  • Wu, Yishan

Abstract

The non-citation rate refers to the proportion of papers that do not attract any citation over a period of time following their publication. After reviewing all the related papers in Web of Science, Google Scholar and Scopus database, we find the current literature on citation distribution gives more focus on the distribution of the percentages and citations of papers receiving at least one citation, while there are fewer studies on the time-dependent patterns of the percentage of never-cited papers, on what distribution model can fit their time-dependent patterns, as well as on the factors influencing the non-citation rate. Here, we perform an empirical pilot analysis to the time-dependent distribution of the percentages of never-cited papers in a series of different, consecutive citation time windows following their publication in our selected six sample journals, and study the influence of paper length on the chance of papers’ getting cited. Through the above analysis, the following general conclusions are drawn: (1) a three-parameter negative exponential model can well fit time-dependent distribution curve of the percentages of never-cited papers; (2) in the initial citation time window, the percentage of never-cited papers in each journal is very high. However, as the citation time window becomes wider and wider, the percentage of never-cited papers begins to drop rapidly at first, and then drop more slowly, and the total degree of decline for most of journals is very large; (3) when applying the wider citation time windows, the percentage of never-cited papers for each journal begins to approach a stable value, and after that value, there will be very few changes in these stable percentages, unless we meet a large amount of “Sleeping Beauties” type papers; (4) the length of an paper has a great influence on whether it will be cited or not.

Suggested Citation

  • Hu, Zewen & Wu, Yishan, 2014. "Regularity in the time-dependent distribution of the percentage of never-cited papers: An empirical pilot study based on the six journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 136-146.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:1:p:136-146
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2013.11.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157713000904
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joi.2013.11.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leo Egghe, 2000. "A Heuristic Study of the First-Citation Distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 48(3), pages 345-359, July.
    2. Guang Yu & Yi-Jun Li, 2010. "Identification of referencing and citation processes of scientific journals based on the citation distribution model," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 249-261, February.
    3. M.H. MacRoberts & B.R. MacRoberts, 2010. "Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom-cited influences," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 1-12, January.
    4. Leo Egghe, 2008. "The mathematical relation between the impact factor and the uncitedness factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(1), pages 117-123, July.
    5. M.H. MacRoberts & B.R. MacRoberts, 2010. "Problems of citation analysis: A study of uncited and seldom‐cited influences," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(1), pages 1-12, January.
    6. Pedro Alvarez & Isabel Escalona & Antonio Pulgarín, 2000. "What is wrong with obsolescence?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 51(9), pages 812-815.
    7. Burrell, Quentin L., 2013. "A stochastic approach to the relation between the impact factor and the uncitedness factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 676-682.
    8. Burrell, Quentin L., 2007. "Hirsch's h-index: A stochastic model," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 16-25.
    9. Leo Egghe & Raf Guns & Ronald Rousseau, 2011. "Thoughts on uncitedness: Nobel laureates and Fields medalists as case studies," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(8), pages 1637-1644, August.
    10. Michael E. D. Koenig, 1983. "Bibliometric indicators versus expert opinion in assessing research performance," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 34(2), pages 136-145, March.
    11. Thed N. van Leeuwen & Henk F. Moed, 2005. "Characteristics of journal impact factors: The effects of uncitedness and citation distribution on the understanding of journal impact factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 357-371, April.
    12. Egghe, L., 2013. "The functional relation between the impact factor and the uncitedness factor revisited," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 183-189.
    13. Anthony F. J. van Raan, 2004. "Sleeping Beauties in science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 59(3), pages 467-472, March.
    14. Leo Egghe & Raf Guns & Ronald Rousseau, 2011. "Thoughts on uncitedness: Nobel laureates and Fields medalists as case studies," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(8), pages 1637-1644, August.
    15. Quentin L. Burrell, 2012. "Alternative thoughts on uncitedness," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1466-1470, July.
    16. Hsu, Jiann-wien & Huang, Ding-wei, 2012. "A scaling between Impact Factor and uncitedness," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(5), pages 2129-2134.
    17. B. C. Brookes, 1970. "Obsolescence of special library periodicals: Sampling errors and utility contours," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 21(5), pages 320-329, September.
    18. Quentin L. Burrell, 2002. "The nth-citation distribution and obsolescence," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(3), pages 309-323, March.
    19. Wolfgang Glänzel & Koenraad Debackere & Bart Thijs & András Schubert, 2006. "A concise review on the role of author self-citations in information science, bibliometrics and science policy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 67(2), pages 263-277, May.
    20. L. Egghe, 2010. "The distribution of the uncitedness factor and its functional relation with the impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 83(3), pages 689-695, June.
    21. Howard D. White & Katherine W. McCain, 1998. "Visualizing a discipline: An author co‐citation analysis of information science, 1972–1995," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 49(4), pages 327-355.
    22. Usha Gupta, 1990. "Obsolescence of physics literature: Exponential decrease of the density of citations to Physical Review articles with age," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 41(4), pages 282-287, June.
    23. Quentin L. Burrell, 2012. "Alternative thoughts on uncitedness," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1466-1470, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jianhua Hou & Jiantao Ye, 2020. "Are uncited papers necessarily all nonimpact papers? A quantitative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1631-1662, August.
    2. Dong, Ke & Wu, Jiang & Wang, Kaili, 2021. "On the inequality of citation counts of all publications of individual authors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    3. Omar Mubin & Abdullah Al Mahmud & Muneeb Ahmad, 2017. "HCI down under: reflecting on a decade of the OzCHI conference," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(1), pages 367-382, July.
    4. Tove Faber Frandsen & Jeppe Nicolaisen, 2023. "Defining the unscholarly publication: a bibliometric study of uncited and barely cited publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(2), pages 1337-1350, February.
    5. Li, Jiang & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Star X. & Ye, Fred Y., 2014. "A study of the “heartbeat spectra” for “sleeping beauties”," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 493-502.
    6. Hou, Jianhua & Yang, Xiucai, 2020. "Social media-based sleeping beauties: Defining, identifying and features," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2).
    7. Aurora A. C. Teixeira & Pedro Cosme Vieira & Ana Patrícia Abreu, 2017. "Sleeping Beauties and their princes in innovation studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 541-580, February.
    8. Zewen Hu & Yishan Wu & Jianjun Sun, 2018. "A quantitative analysis of determinants of non-citation using a panel data model," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(2), pages 843-861, August.
    9. Marcel Clermont & Johanna Krolak & Dirk Tunger, 2021. "Does the citation period have any effect on the informative value of selected citation indicators in research evaluations?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1019-1047, February.
    10. Liang, Liming & Zhong, Zhen & Rousseau, Ronald, 2015. "Uncited papers, uncited authors and uncited topics: A case study in library and information science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 50-58.
    11. Ji-ping Gao & Cheng Su & Hai-yan Wang & Li-hua Zhai & Yun-tao Pan, 2019. "Research fund evaluation based on academic publication output analysis: the case of Chinese research fund evaluation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 959-972, May.
    12. António Correia & Hugo Paredes & Benjamim Fonseca, 2018. "Scientometric analysis of scientific publications in CSCW," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(1), pages 31-89, January.
    13. Jianhua Hou & Xiucai Yang, 2019. "Patent sleeping beauties: evolutionary trajectories and identification methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 187-215, July.
    14. Jeppe Nicolaisen & Tove Faber Frandsen, 2019. "Zero impact: a large-scale study of uncitedness," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1227-1254, May.
    15. Pablo Dorta-González & Rafael Suárez-Vega & María Isabel Dorta-González, 2020. "Open access effect on uncitedness: a large-scale study controlling by discipline, source type and visibility," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2619-2644, September.
    16. Zewen Hu & Angela Lin & Peter Willett, 2019. "Identification of research communities in cited and uncited publications using a co-authorship network," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(1), pages 1-19, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zewen Hu & Yishan Wu & Jianjun Sun, 2018. "A quantitative analysis of determinants of non-citation using a panel data model," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(2), pages 843-861, August.
    2. Jeppe Nicolaisen & Tove Faber Frandsen, 2019. "Zero impact: a large-scale study of uncitedness," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(2), pages 1227-1254, May.
    3. Burrell, Quentin L., 2013. "A stochastic approach to the relation between the impact factor and the uncitedness factor," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 676-682.
    4. Jianhua Hou & Jiantao Ye, 2020. "Are uncited papers necessarily all nonimpact papers? A quantitative analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1631-1662, August.
    5. Quentin L. Burrell, 2014. "The individual author’s publication–citation process: theory and practice," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 725-742, January.
    6. Pablo Dorta-González & Rafael Suárez-Vega & María Isabel Dorta-González, 2020. "Open access effect on uncitedness: a large-scale study controlling by discipline, source type and visibility," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2619-2644, September.
    7. Li, Jiang & Shi, Dongbo & Zhao, Star X. & Ye, Fred Y., 2014. "A study of the “heartbeat spectra” for “sleeping beauties”," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 493-502.
    8. Katchanov, Yurij L. & Markova, Yulia V. & Shmatko, Natalia A., 2023. "Uncited papers in the structure of scientific communication," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    9. Egghe, L., 2013. "The functional relation between the impact factor and the uncitedness factor revisited," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 183-189.
    10. Finardi, Ugo, 2014. "On the time evolution of received citations, in different scientific fields: An empirical study," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 13-24.
    11. Bar-Ilan, Judit, 2008. "Informetrics at the beginning of the 21st century—A review," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 1-52.
    12. Quentin L. Burrell, 2012. "Alternative thoughts on uncitedness," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1466-1470, July.
    13. Lucio Bertoli-Barsotti & Tommaso Lando, 2017. "A theoretical model of the relationship between the h-index and other simple citation indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1415-1448, June.
    14. Zewen Hu & Angela Lin & Peter Willett, 2019. "Identification of research communities in cited and uncited publications using a co-authorship network," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(1), pages 1-19, January.
    15. Yang, Siluo & Han, Ruizhen & Wolfram, Dietmar & Zhao, Yuehua, 2016. "Visualizing the intellectual structure of information science (2006–2015): Introducing author keyword coupling analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 132-150.
    16. Leo Egghe, 2007. "Probabilities for encountering genius, basic, ordinary or insignificant papers based on the cumulative nth citation distribution," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 70(1), pages 167-181, January.
    17. J Mingers, 2008. "Exploring the dynamics of journal citations: Modelling with s-curves," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(8), pages 1013-1025, August.
    18. Helena H. Zhang & Fred Y. Ye, 2020. "Identifying ‘associated-sleeping-beauties’ in ‘swan-groups’ based on small qualified datasets of physics and economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1525-1537, March.
    19. Saralees Nadarajah & Samuel Kotz, 2007. "Models for citation behavior," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(2), pages 291-305, August.
    20. Siluo Yang & Feng Ma & Yanhui Song & Junping Qiu, 2010. "A longitudinal analysis of citation distribution breadth for Chinese scholars," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 85(3), pages 755-765, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:1:p:136-146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joi .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.