An introduction to the theory of citing
M.V. Simkin, V.P. Roychowdhury
TL;DR
This paper presents a mathematical theory of citing, showing that most citations are copied and that citation counts can be explained by chance rather than a paper's quality.
Contribution
It introduces a statistical approach to understanding citation behavior, revealing that many citations are copied and driven by chance rather than merit.
Findings
80% of citations are copied from other papers
Citation counts can be explained by probability laws
Most citations do not necessarily reflect a paper's quality
Abstract
Statistical analysis of repeat misprints in scientific citations leads to the conclusion that about 80% of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in othe papers. Based on this finding a mathematical theory of citing is constructed. It leads to the conclusion that a large number of citations does not have to be a result of paper's extraordinary qualities, but can be explained by the ordinary law of chances.
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Taxonomy
TopicsComplex Network Analysis Techniques · scientometrics and bibliometrics research · Advanced Text Analysis Techniques