Validity of citation criteria for assessing the influence of scientific publications: New evidence with peer assessment

Stephen M. Lawani and Alan E. Bayer

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1983, vol. 34, issue 1, 59-66

Abstract: This article reviews the principal correlational studies employing citation counts as criterion measures for assessing the impact of scientific scholarship. The rationale and limitations of such measures and studies are discussed. New evidence on the validity of citation criteria is presented based on a sample of 870 cancer research papers, divided into three groups (“first‐order” papers, abstracted in the Year Book of Cancer; “second‐order” papers, listed but not abstracted in the yearbook; and “average‐order” papers, a representative cross section of research papers unlisted in the yearbook). Results consistently show that highly rated papers are more highly cited over the ensuing five years after publication, or when controls are introduced for self‐citations, for the influence of listing in the yearbook, and for language and country of authorship. The implications of results are discussed.

Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.4630340109

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:34:y:1983:i:1:p:59-66

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1097-4571

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science from Association for Information Science & Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().