Evidence of complex citer motivations

Terrence A. Brooks

Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1986, vol. 37, issue 1, 34-36

Abstract: There were 20 scholars interviewed about their citation motives in recently published articles. Their 437 citations were scaled along 1 or more of the following 7 citer motives: currency, negative credit, operational information, persuasiveness, positive credit, reader alert, and social consensus. The majority (70.7%) of the references were attributed to more than 1 motive. Analysis of the clustering of the citer motives showed 3 groupings: (1) persuasiveness, positive credit, currency, and social consensus, (2) negative credit, and (3) reader alert and operational information. Negative credit references were often found to be used with a countervailing positive credit, currency, or social consensus reference. This is considered to be empirical evidence of MacRoberts and MacRoberts' [8] hypothesis that scholars dissemble when giving negative references. © 1986 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Date: 1986
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https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(198601)37:13.0.CO;2-0

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:37:y:1986:i:1:p:34-36

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