Abstract
Because of the widespread use of citations in evaluation, we tend to think of them primarily as a form of colleague recognition. This interpretation neglects rhetorical factors that shape patterns of citations. After reviewing sociological theories of citation, this paper argues that we should think of citations first as rhetoric and second as reward. Some implications of this view for quantitative modeling of the citation process are drawn.
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Notes and references
An early treatise on such applications isEvaluative Bibliometrics, Computer Horizons, Inc., Cherry Hill, NJ, 1976. An updated discussion is provided in: F. NARIN, Bibliometric techniques in the evaluation of research programs,Science and Public Policy, 14 (1987) 99–106.
See, for example, the experience of the Leiden Indicators Project, as reported in: H. F. MOED, W. J. M. BURGER, J. G. FRANKFORT, A. F. J. Van RAAN,On the Measurement of Research Performance: The Use of Bibliometric Indicators, University of Leiden, Leiden, 1983.
Perhaps the best known controversy is over the work ofMartin andIrvine on radio astronomy observatories. See B. R. MARTIN, J. IRVINE, Assessing basic research: Some partial indicators of scientific progress in radio astronomy,Research Policy, 12 (1983) 61–90.
Some of these are drawn from common knowledge and others from E. GARFIELD, Citation data is subtle stuff. A primer on evaluating a scientist's performance,The Scientist, 6 April 1987, 9; and H. A. ZUCKERMAN, Citation analysis and the complex problem of intellectual influence,Scientometrics, 12 (1987) 329–338.
ZUCKERMAN, ibid..
S. M. STIGLER, Precise measurement in the face of error: A comment on MacRoberts and MacRoberts,Social Studies of Science, 17 (1987) 332–34.
M. H. MacROBERTS, B. R. MacROBERTS, Measurement in the face of universal uncertainty: A reply to Stigler,Social Studies of Sciene, 17 (1987) 335.
See for example S. COLE, J. COLE, Scientific output and recognition — A study in the operation of the reward system in science,American Sociological Review, 32 (1967) 379–80.
N. KAPLAN, The norms of citation behavior: Prolegomena to the footnote,American Documentation, 16 (1967) 179–184.
MARTIN, IRVINE, op. cit. note 3 page 69.
MERTON first discussed this system in: Science and technology in a democratic order,Journal of Legal and Political Sociology, (1942) 115–26 (reprinted as: The normative structure of science,in: R. K. MERTON, The Sociology of Science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973).
Kaplan has discussed the application of the Mertonian paradigm to the problem of citation. See N. KAPLAN, op. cit. note 9..
See S. E. COZZENS,Social Control and Multiple Discovery in Science: The Opiate Receptor Case, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989.
For example, see M. CALLON, J. LAW, A. RIP. (Eds),Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology, The Macmillan Press Ltd, London, 1986.
H. G. SMALL, Cited documents as concept symbols,Social Studies of Science, 8 (1978) 327–340.
B. LATOUR, S. WOOLGAR,Laboratory Life, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 1979.
G. N. GILBERT, Referencing as persuasion,Social Studies of Science, 7 (1977) 113–122.
For examples of texts that were rejected as outside the rhetorical conventions of the field, see G. MYERS, Texts as knowledge claims: The social construction of two biology articles,Social Studies of Science, 15 (1985) 593–630.
S. E. COZZENS, op. cit. note 13.
See O. AMSTERDAMSKA, L. LEYDESDORFF in this issue on the “significance” of citations.
See S. E. COZZENS, op. cit. note 13, for an analysis of how this affected citations to papers announcing a multiple discovery — a special case in which content can be held relatively constant and the effects of non-content factors can be examined.
See for example A. MENDEZ and I. GOMEZ in this issue.
A. PORTER, D. E. CHUBIN, X. JIN, Citations and scientific progress: Comparing bibliometric measures with scientist judgments,Scientometrics, 13 (1988) 103–124.
S. E. COZZENS, Comparing the sciences: Citation context analysis of papers from Neuropharmacology and the Sociology of Science,Social Studies of Science, 15 (1985) 127–53.
Of course, we would also need to study the stability of these rates. D. WHITE, D. SULLIVAN, E. BARBONI have shown that the dependence of theory on experiment and vice versa can change with intellectual shifts in a specialty: The interdependence of theory and experiment in revolutionary science: The case of parity violation,Social Studies of Science, 9 (1979) 303–27.
S. E. COZZENS, Life history of a knowledge claim,Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 9 (1988) 511–29.
E. GARFIELD, The ‘Obliteration Phenomenon’ in science-and the advantage of being obliterated!, in: E. GARFIELD,Essays of an Information Scientist, Vol. 2, ISI Press, Philadelphia, 1977, pp. 396–98.
COZZENS, op. cit. note 26.
P. MESSERI, Obliteration by incorporation: Toward a problematics, theory and metric of the use of scientific literature, paper presented to the American Sociological Association, 5 September 1978.
See A. MENDEZ, I. GOMEZ, this volume. The best known case of nonobliteration among methods papers is the classic by O. H.Lowry on his method of protein concentration, a paper which is cited over 10000 times every year; see discussion by E. GARFIELD, Citation frequency as a measure of research activity and performance,Current Contents, 31 January 1973, pp. 5–7.
See PORTER et al., op. cit. note 23, and COZZENS, op. cit. note 26 Life history of a knowledge:claim,Knowledge: Creation, Diffusion, Utilization, 9 (1988) 511–29.
See H. F. MOED, this issue, for important findings on this last point.
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Cozzens, S.E. What do citations count? the rhetoric-first model. Scientometrics 15, 437–447 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017064
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017064