Citation Indexes in Scientific and Technical Literature

The work of science and technology is cumulative. Through references and citations, researchers acknowledge previous work in an area, lend support to her own arguments and look toward the future of the research. A reference gives credit to previous work, places the research being presented in that context and demonstrates the author's familiarity with the relevant literature. A citation shows what the research being presented receives from other research and may lead the reader to future work in that area. If you looked at an article published in a sociology journal in 1982, for example, you might find a research paper offering an explanation for the rise of violent crime in the United States the previous year. Looking at research done on violent crime in 1985, you may see a citation, or a number of citations, to the 1982 paper. As your research progresses, you may find an increasing number of citations and references to the 1982 study in subsequent research. As a result, the importance of the 1982 research has been established. Nevertheless, you need to establish why and in what context the work was considered important. The 1982 paper may be cited as a example of a famous statistical blunder leading to misinformation about the causes for the rise of violent crime. Generally, however, the number of citations a paper receives indicates its confirmation and authority in the field. Roughly half of the available papers are cited in any one year and of that half, three-quarters are cited only once.

Introduced in 1964, the Science Citation Index covers scientific and technical literature in the natural and behavioral sciences, as well as in agriculture, engineering and medicine. The index is published every two months and is made up of three sections, a Source Index covering current articles, a Citation Index covering references appearing in these articles and a Permuterm Index covering keywords appearing in these articles. The Source Index is arranged alphabetically by the name of the first author of the journal article. Other source items include names of secondary authors, abbreviations of journal titles, volume, page, and year of the publication and the number of references it contains. The Citation Index is arranged alphabetically by the authors' name followed by a chronological list of the author's cited articles. The Permuterm Index is used essentially as a subject guide to the article in the Source Index. Bimonthly issues are compiled into an annual index, and five-year indexes have been compiled since 1965. Retrospective indexes have been published. There is also a Social Sciences Citation Index and an Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Accordingly, Journal Citation Reports analyzes the frequency of citations to journal titles, noting which titles have been cited most and least frequently. The coverage of each of these indexes has continued to increase, mirroring the increase in the number of publications and citations.

The relevance of citation indexes generates a good deal of debate. The number of citations attributed to an author, paper or journal has been taken as an indication of the impact and influence of the work or journal title. Put simply, the greater number of citations the greater the significance of the work. Through citation analysis, sociologists have studied the relation between the scientists productivity and the recognition of their work. Nobel Prize winners, for example, have citation rates almost thirty times greater than other scientists after they win the award. It seems that with respect to citation, the rich get richer. While peer recognition influences citation rates, however, it is impossible to determine whether content or reputation is the basis for frequent citation since authors are not anonymous.

Sociologists and historians have also used citation sequences as the basis for claims about the progress and impact of certain ideas and techniques. The ideas and techniques presented in research papers may be picked up and cited in later work, or completely forgotten. Frequency of citation can also be seen as a product of the number of articles published about a subject in a given year. As well, many researchers have argued that even though a work has been cited, it may not have been read. In many fields for a journal article to be considered relevant, an obligatory citation must be made to a standard bearer in the field, or to an article explaining a technique used by researchers. Self-citation is also customary in many fields. Many researchers also cite their pervious work as a bid for self-promotion. However, self-citation is not seen as a statistically significant in comparing citation frequencies.

Still, given disputes about the merit of citation, these indexes can be powerful tools both for retrieving information and for evaluating the current state of the art.

Discussion

1. Consider the different contexts in which you read, for pleasure, for class assignments, for work. How do you approach reading in each of those contexts? How does having a choice of what you read influence how you read? What strategies do you employ in choosing what you read? How do you approach assigned readings in class? In what specific manner do you read? Do you skip sections of the text? What triggers your attention? Particular words? Images? How much time do spend reading each week?

2. What role do you think the reader's purpose plays in defining a reading strategy? How do your own social roles , as a student, parent, resident, voter, fan, employee, influence what and how you read?

3. In surveying how physicists read in their discipline Charles Bazerman challenges: "Sometimes the articles are so poorly written that the reader cannot follow the argument or its meaning." Generally, what do you think bad writing indicates? When reading bad or confusing writing do you stop to re-read the material or give up? What strategies does a writer use to write well and accessibly about complex or dense subjects?

4. Before the modern scientific era, metaphor was used frequently, but with some hesitation, but today metaphor is a device often used by popular science writers. What is your viewpoint of using metaphors in scientific and technical literature?