In basic science the percentage of “authoritative” references decreases as bibliographies become shorter

The empirical question addressed in this contribution is: How does the relative frequency at which authors in a research field cite “authoritative” documents in the reference lists in their papers vary with the number of references such papers contain? “Authoritative” documents are defined as those that are among the ten percent most frequently cited items in a research field. It is assumed that authors who write papers with relatively short reference lists are more selective in what they cite than authors who compile long reference lists. Thus, by comparing in a research field the fraction of references of a particular type in short reference lists to that in longer lists, one can obtain an indication of the importance of that type. Our analysis suggests that in basic science fields such as physics or molecular biology the percentage of “authoritative” references decreases as bibliographies become shorter. In other words, when basic scientists are selective in referencing behavior, references to “authoritative” documents are dropped more readily than other types. The implications of this empirical finding for the debate on normative versus constructive citation theories are discussed.