Copied citations create renowned papers?
M.V. Simkin, V.P. Roychowdhury
TL;DR
This paper demonstrates that the skewed distribution of scientific citations can be explained by a simple copying model, where authors replicate references from cited papers, accounting for the high citation counts of certain papers.
Contribution
It introduces a straightforward probabilistic model showing that citation copying explains the empirical citation distribution without complex mechanisms.
Findings
A model with random citation and copying reproduces real citation patterns.
Citation copying accounts for highly cited papers.
Mathematical probability explains citation disparities.
Abstract
Recently we discovered (cond-mat/0212043) that the majority of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers. Here we show that a model, in which a scientist picks three random papers, cites them,and also copies a quarter of their references accounts quantitatively for empirically observed citation distribution. Simple mathematical probability, not genius, can explain why some papers are cited a lot more than the other.
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Taxonomy
Topicsscientometrics and bibliometrics research