Universality of citation distributions revisited

TL;DR

This study critically examines the claim that citation distributions are universal across scientific fields, finding significant exceptions and implications for bibliometric impact measures.

Contribution

The paper provides a large-scale validation that challenges the universality of citation distributions across different scientific disciplines.

Findings

Citation distributions are not universally identical across fields.

Many fields show similar citation patterns, but notable exceptions exist.

Implications for using citation metrics in evaluating scientific impact.

Abstract

Radicchi, Fortunato, and Castellano [arXiv:0806.0974, PNAS 105(45), 17268] claim that, apart from a scaling factor, all fields of science are characterized by the same citation distribution. We present a large-scale validation study of this universality-of-citation-distributions claim. Our analysis shows that claiming citation distributions to be universal for all fields of science is not warranted. Although many fields indeed seem to have fairly similar citation distributions, there are quite some exceptions as well. We also briefly discuss the consequences of our findings for the measurement of scientific impact using citation-based bibliometric indicators.