IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v80y2009i1d10.1007_s11192-008-1824-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The citation impact outside references — formal versus informal citations

Author

Listed:
  • Werner Marx

    (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research)

  • Manuel Cardona

    (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research)

Abstract

In this study the amount of “informal” citations (i.e. those mentioning only author names or their initials instead of the complete references) in comparison to the “formal” (full reference based) citations is analyzed using some pioneers of chemistry and physics as examples. The data reveal that the formal citations often measure only a small fraction of the overall impact of seminal publications. Furthermore, informal citations are mainly given instead of (and not in addition to) formal citations. As a major consequence, the overall impact of pioneering articles and researchers cannot be entirely determined by merely counting the full reference based citations.

Suggested Citation

  • Werner Marx & Manuel Cardona, 2009. "The citation impact outside references — formal versus informal citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(1), pages 1-21, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:80:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-008-1824-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-008-1824-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-008-1824-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-008-1824-2?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. Michael H. MacRoberts & Barbara R. MacRoberts, 1989. "Problems of citation analysis: A critical review," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 40(5), pages 342-349, September.
    2. Manuel Cardona & Werner Marx, 2005. "The disaster of the Nazi-power in science as reflected by some leading journals and scientists in physics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 64(3), pages 313-324, August.
    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. Werner Marx & Lutz Bornmann, 2010. "How accurately does Thomas Kuhn’s model of paradigm change describe the transition from the static view of the universe to the big bang theory in cosmology?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(2), pages 441-464, August.
    2. Werner Marx & Lutz Bornmann, 2013. "The emergence of plate tectonics and the Kuhnian model of paradigm shift: a bibliometric case study based on the Anna Karenina principle," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 595-614, February.

    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. Dangzhi Zhao & Elisabeth Logan, 2002. "Citation analysis using scientific publications on the Web as data source: A case study in the XML research area," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 54(3), pages 449-472, July.
    2. Ponomariov, Branco & Toivanen, Hannes, 2014. "Knowledge flows and bases in emerging economy innovation systems: Brazilian research 2005–2009," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 588-596.
    3. Malcolm Wright & J. Scott Armstrong, 2008. "The Ombudsman: Verification of Citations: Fawlty Towers of Knowledge?," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 38(2), pages 125-139, April.
    4. T. J. Phelan, 1999. "A compendium of issues for citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 45(1), pages 117-136, May.
    5. Zheng Yan & Wenqian Robertson & Yaosheng Lou & Tom W. Robertson & Sung Yong Park, 2021. "Finding leading scholars in mobile phone behavior: a mixed-method analysis of an emerging interdisciplinary field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9499-9517, December.
    6. Jianhua Hou, 2017. "Exploration into the evolution and historical roots of citation analysis by referenced publication year spectroscopy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(3), pages 1437-1452, March.
    7. Peter Sjögårde & Fereshteh Didegah, 2022. "The association between topic growth and citation impact of research publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1903-1921, April.
    8. Mehmet Ali Köseoglu & John A. Parnell & Melissa Yan Yee Yick, 2021. "Identifying influential studies and maturity level in intellectual structure of fields: evidence from strategic management," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1271-1309, February.
    9. Рубинштейн Александр Яковлевич, "undated". "Ранжирование Российских Экономических Журналов: Научный Метод Или «Игра В Цыфирь»? [Ran Ranking of Russian Economic Journals: The Scientific Method or “Numbers Game”?]," Working papers a:pru175:ye:2016:1, Institute of Economics.
    10. Masaki Eto, 2013. "Evaluations of context-based co-citation searching," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 94(2), pages 651-673, February.
    11. Martin Meyer, 2000. "What is Special about Patent Citations? Differences between Scientific and Patent Citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 49(1), pages 93-123, August.
    12. Li, Yunrong & Radicchi, Filippo & Castellano, Claudio & Ruiz-Castillo, Javier, 2013. "Quantitative evaluation of alternative field normalization procedures," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 746-755.
    13. Petridis, Konstantinos & Malesios, Chrisovalantis & Arabatzis, Garyfallos & Thanassoulis, Emmanuel, 2013. "Efficiency analysis of forestry journals: Suggestions for improving journals’ quality," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 505-521.
    14. repec:hig:journl:v:6:y:2012:i:1:p:38-58 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Nelson, Andrew J., 2012. "Putting university research in context: Assessing alternative measures of production and diffusion at Stanford," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 678-691.
    16. Wang, Guoyan & Hu, Guangyuan & Li, Chuanfeng & Tang, Li, 2018. "Long live the scientists: Tracking the scientific fame of great minds in physics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1089-1098.
    17. Ronald N. Kostoff, 2002. "Citation analysis of research performer quality," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(1), pages 49-71, January.
    18. Joshua Aizenman & Kenneth Kletzer, 2011. "The life cycle of scholars and papers in economics - the 'citation death tax'," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(27), pages 4135-4148.
    19. Steven M. Shugan, 2003. "Editorial: Journal Rankings: Save the Outlets for Your Research," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 437-441.
    20. Shahzad, Murtuza & Alhoori, Hamed & Freedman, Reva & Rahman, Shaikh Abdul, 2022. "Quantifying the online long-term interest in research," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    21. Fairclough, Ruth & Thelwall, Mike, 2015. "National research impact indicators from Mendeley readers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 845-859.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:spr:scient:v:80:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-008-1824-2. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.