Defining the unscholarly publication: a bibliometric study of uncited and barely cited publications

Tove Faber Frandsen () and Jeppe Nicolaisen ()
Additional contact information
Tove Faber Frandsen: University of Southern Denmark
Jeppe Nicolaisen: University of Copenhagen

Scientometrics, 2023, vol. 128, issue 2, No 20, 1337-1350

Abstract: Abstract Bibliometric studies often exclude documents with little or no scientific content. Yet, identifying and classifying the unscholarly publication is a complex matter, and misclassifications often occur. Reference-based classifications are frequently proposed and implemented in bibliometric studies. Unfortunately, with little support for the actual classifications. In search of valid separation of scholarly/unscholarly publications, this study explores the correlation between number of references and citations received. Data was drawn from Scopus, and two separate analyses were conducted. The first analysis focus on journal articles published in the year 2000 from each of the four major subject areas in Scopus: Health sciences, life sciences, physical sciences and social sciences. The second analysis focus on all journal articles published in either 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 or 2020. None of the analyses identified a natural cutoff point between scholarly and unscholarly publications. There is no significant point in the distribution that could more clearly distinguish scholarly from unscholarly publications than prior suggestions. In addition, the results of this study demonstrate how bibliometric analyses are impacted by defining scholarly publications on the number of references across different subject areas.

Keywords: Scholarly and unscholarly publications; Number of references; Uncitedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-022-04610-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04610-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04610-4

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().