Bibliometric Research: 'Literature of' Studies vs Citation Analysis

1. Bibliometric Research:
“Literature of” Studies
vs Citation Analysis
Teresa S. Welsh, Ph.D.
teresa.welsh@usm.edu
School of Library &
Information Science

2. 8/27/2021 2
What is a Publication Pattern Analysis?
 Study publishing characteristics
 “Literature of” study or “literature mapping” or
“literature analysis”
 Study of patterns of publication such as:
 Number of articles published per year on a particular
topic (publication trend over time)
 Authorship pattern such as most prolific authors on a
given topic (Lotka’s Law) or in a particular journal
 Pattern of core journals – in which journals are topics
on a particular topic published (Bradford’s Law)

3. 8/27/2021 3
What is an Authorship Analysis?
 Study of characteristics of authors of literature on
a particular topic or published in a particular
journal:
 Author gender?
 Position – librarian, university faculty, student?
 Geographic location?
 Degree of collaboration (single-authored, co-authored
by 2, co-authored by 3 or more?

4. 8/27/2021 4
What is Citation Analysis?
 A measure of impact
 The acknowledgement that one document
receives from another
 It implies a relationship between the
documents.
 “… that area of bibliometrics which deals with
the study of these relationships” (Smith, 1981).

5. 8/27/2021 5
Origins of Citation Analysis
 Scientific citation indexing began in post-
WWII era in response to growing need of
researchers for more efficient indexing and
retrieval
 Dr Eugene Garfield, founded Institute of
Scientific Information (ISI) and pioneered the
creation of multi-disciplinary Science Citation
Index (SCI)

6. 8/27/2021 6
Eugene Garfield on Citation Analysis
“You could say that citation
analysis is like fishing. You
start with a line and hook
because you want one fish.
Then you want to know
which school of fish that one
fish is connected to. You
decide what size of a net to
use; you can expand your
search with a big net, but you
also can narrow it down
using a small net” (2000).
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/

7. 8/27/2021 7
Assumptions of Citation Analysis
 Citation implies use of the cited document by
the author
 Citation implies that citations are made to the
most relevant works on the subject
 Citation implies the cited and citing documents
are related in content
 All citations are equal and are counted equally
(Smith, 1981)