<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <head> <link href="https://bactra.org/plain-style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Citations and Citation Networks; Bibliometrics</title>        </head> <body>   <P> <P></P><!-- Access to MathJax through the version I'm hosting on bactra.org !--><!-- but only IF mathmode is activated via meta_mathmode !-->  <script> window.MathJax = {  tex: {    inlineMath: [['$','$'], ['\\(','\\)']],    processEscapes: true,    autoload: {      color: [],      colorv2: ['color']    },    packages: {'[+]': ['noerrors']}  },  options: {    ignoreHtmlClass: 'tex2jax_ignore',    processHtmlClass: 'tex2jax_process'  },  loader: {    load: ['[tex]/noerrors']  }};</script>      <cite><a href="http://bactra.org/notebooks">Notebooks</a></cite> <div class="text"><div class="left"><h2>Citations and Citation Networks; Bibliometrics</h2> <i><a href="faq.html#5.4">Last update</a>: 22 Aug 2025 09:25</i><br><i><a href="faq.html#5.4">First version</a>: 29 August 2015</i> <hr> <P>  <P>One strong suspicion I have is that as official-dom has paid more and moreattention to citations (counts, various indices, etc.), they have becomesystematically <em>worse</em> as a guide to what is actually important in thescientific literature.  I don't know how we could begin to test that,though, without a quite independent way of assessing quality. <ul>See also:	<li><a href="network-data-analysis.html">Analysis of Network Data</a>	<li><a href="complex-networks.html">Complex Networks</a>	<li><a href="text-networks.html">Joint Modeling of Texts and Networks</a>	<li><a href="social-networks.html">Social Networks</a>	<li><a href="sociology-of-science.html">Sociology of Science</a>	</ul> <ul>Recommended:	<li>Robert Adler, John Ewing, Peter Taylor, "Citation Statistics",<cite>Statistical Science</cite> <strong>24</strong> (2009): 1--14, <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.3529">arxiv:0910.3529</a>[With commentary and replies.  These are techniques and measures which cameout of sociology of science, and have become important tools of policy."There is a belief that citation statistics are inherently more accurate because they substitute simple numbers for complex judgments, and hence overcome the possible subjectivity of peer review. But this belief is unfounded."]	<li>Liam Kofi Bright, "Citational Justice", <a href="https://sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2019/12/citational-justice.html?m=1"><cite>The Sooty Empiric</cite> 23 November 2021</a>	<li>Derek J. de Solla Price		<ul>		<li><cite>Little Science, Big Science</cite>		<li>"Networks of Scientific Papers", <cite>Science</cite><strong>149</strong> (1965): 510--515		<li>"A General Theory of Bibliometric and Other Cumulative Advantage Processes", <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.4630270505"><cite>Journal of the American Society for Information Science</cite> <strong>27</strong> (1976): 292--306</a>		</ul>	<li>Mikhail V. Simkin and V. P. Roychowdhury		<ul>		<li>"Read before you cite!"<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0212043">cond-mat/0212043</a>		<li>"Copied citations create renowned papers?"<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0305150">cond-mat/0305150</a>		<li>"A mathematical theory of citing", <ahref="http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0504094">physics/0504094</a>		</ul>	</ul> <ul>To read:	<li>Sven Bilke and C. Peterson, "Topological Properties of Citationand Metabolic Networks",<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0103361">cond-mat/0103361</a>	<li>Michael Golosovsky and Sorin Solomon, "Stochastic Dynamical Modelof a Growing Citation Network Based on a Self-Exciting PointProcess", <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.098701"><cite>PhysicalReview Letters</cite> <strong>109</strong> (2012): 098701</a>	<li>Yves Gingras, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10719.001.0001"><cite>Bibliometrics and Research Evaluation:Uses and Abuses</cite></a>	<li>Vincent Holst, Andres Algaba, Floriano Tori, Sylvia Wenmackers, Vincent Ginis, "Dataset Artefacts are the Hidden Drivers of the Declining Disruptiveness in Science", <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/2402.14583">arxiv:2402.14583</a> [I need to read this carefully, but it looked fairly convincing on a quick skim, in which case: ouch...]	<li>Adam B. Jaffe and Manuel Trajtenberg, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/5263.001.0001"><cite>Patents, Citations, and Innovations: A Window on the Knowledge Economy</cite></a>	<li>Victor V. Kryssanov, Evgeny L. Kuleshov, Frank J. Rinaldo, andHitoshi Ogawa, "We cite as we communicate: A communication model for thecitationprocess", <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0703115">cs.DL/0703115</a>	<li>Vincent Lariviere, Yves Gingras, "The impact factor's Matthew effect: a natural experiment in bibliometrics", <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.3177">arxiv:0908.3177</a>	<li>Uri Shwed and Peter S. Bearman, "The Temporal Structure ofScientific ConsensusFormation", <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122410388488"><cite>AmericanSociological Review</cite> <strong>75</strong> (2010): 817--840</a>	<li>Alexei Vazquez, "Statistics of citation networks," <ahref="http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0105031">cond-mat/0105031</a>	</ul>  </p> </div></div> <hr> <div class="footer"><P><a href="http://bactra.org/notebooks/citations.html">permanent link for thisnote</a> &nbsp; <a href="http://bactra.org/notebooks/citations.rss">RSS feed for thisnote</a></P></div><div class="foot"> <center> <cite><a href="http://bactra.org/notebooks">Notebooks</a></cite>: &nbsp; <a href="http://www.blosxom.com/">Powered by Blosxom</a> </center> </div> </body></html>