Orthographic Correlations in Astrophysics

TL;DR

This paper investigates the correlation between authors' initials and their citation metrics in astrophysics, revealing that authors with 'senior' initials tend to produce more impactful work despite some bias.

Contribution

It introduces an analysis of orthographic effects on author impact metrics, highlighting a surprising advantage for orthographically senior authors.

Findings

Orthographically senior authors have higher citation counts.

Some evidence of discrimination against orthographically senior authors.

Authors with certain initials produce more highly-cited papers.

Abstract

We analyze correlations between the first letter of the name of an author and the number of citations their papers receive. We look at simple mean counts, numbers of highly-cited papers, and normalized h-indices, by letter. To our surprise, we conclude that orthographically senior authors produce a better body of work than their colleagues, despite some evidence of discrimination against them.