3 Chapter 3 Citation Analysis
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3 Chapter 3 Citation Analysis 3.1 Introduction The citation refers to the list of references to other works in a published work. “Referring” means mentioning in the proper context and giving an explicit bibliographical statement in a list of references. Citations are becoming a major type of raw data for the study of information. These are the references placed at the end of any scholarly paper, to those articles, previously published, that the author has made use of in his own paper. A citation is not a unit, but an event and is only quantifiable in terms of its frequency of occurrence (Panda, 1997). Citation analysis or Bibliometrics is one of the important guides to planning for collection development. The primary objective of the bibliometrics is to obtain knowledge about the use made of various channels of communication. Eugene Garfield is the pioneer information scientist and originator of citation indexes. The first publication count was made by Cole and Eales in 1917 in their study of the “The history of comparative anatomy Part- I: A Statistical Analysis”. It is considered to be the first bibliometric study (Narin, 1997). Mr. Hulme (1923) coined the term ‘Statistical Bibliography’ and published a book to refer to the application of quantitative techniques to libraries. Gross and Gross (1927) seems to have originated the concept of counting the references in a central scientific journal as a means of identifying the key journals in the subject. The term ‘Bibliometrics’ is established by Pritchard (1969). He defined the term ‘Bibliometrics’ as “The application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication”. Bibliometrics is a measuring technique by which inter-connected aspects of written communication can be quantified. Fairthorne (1969) defined it as ‘Quantitative treatment of the properties of recorded discourse and behavior appertaining to it. Bibliometric studies are of two types, viz., qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative studies are based on the three basic laws which are known as (I) Bradford’s Law of Scattering, (II) Zipf’s Law of Frequency of Words and (III) Lotka’s Law of Productivity of Authors. Whereas, the Quantitative study is 117 based on the citation analysis and is used to quantify the literature published during a particular time (Sinha & Dhiman, 2001). Citations are important components of every research process. When researchers prepare their thesis or write research articles they constantly try to find out research literature that supports their views, objectives, arguments, feasible suggestions, etc. Such relevant literature is searched, read, understood, and cited by researchers in their Ph. D. theses and research articles. All researchers cite earlier relevant research. They do so because past research provides background, rationality, and vision to them. This process of providing the citation to earlier research is known as citing a document (Kumbhar, 2015). 3.2 What is citation? A reference is an acknowledgement that one document gives to another. A citation is the acknowledgement that one document receives from another. A citation implies a relationship between a part or the whole of the cited document and a part or the whole of the citing document. The citation is a bibliographic reference or a footnote that expresses a connection between the two documents. Citation becomes an indicator of use. This is one of the indirect methods, like the analysis of library records, to determine the actual use of the sources. Citations are the references given at the end of thesis, dissertation, scholarly paper, to the article of documents previously published. Citations are the documents which are referred and quoted by the author for his writing. Citation represents the full bibliographical description for the paper which an author has used while writing his paper (Kumar, 2004). In the research process, citation means a reference. The citation is a process of giving reference of a document such as a Ph. D. thesis, a research article or a project report. When a scholar says that he/she has cited five authors or documents means he/she has given references to five documents in his/her research writing. All cited documents are listed and such list is called as ‘List of References’ provided at the end of the document or sometimes at the end of the chapter. Harrod’s Librarians Glossary (Prytherch, 1984) defined citation as, “A reference to a text or part of a text identifying the document in which it may be found”. Glossary of Library Science Technical Terms (Gour, 1980) defined citation as, “A reference to a text to identify a quotation from it”. According to the New International Webster’s Dictionary (1996), 118 Citation means “The act of citing of a pasaage quoted”. International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science (1998) defined citation as, “A reference to a text or part of a text identifying the document in which it may be found, or the format of such a reference, which would typically include the author, title and bibliographic description of the document”. Citing document is a document that cites other documents. Cited document is a document that is being cited. Citation is the acknowledgement one document receives from another. Citations go forward in time and grow over time (Panda, 1997). List of references is a list that enumerates all documents cited in the text of a thesis, research article, project report, etc. It is an essential part of research papers, particularly in the sciences. It includes the bibliographical details of each document. Such a list is usually arranged alphabetically by author’s name. Bibliographical details are the details about the document. These include the name of the author, title, edition, name of the journal, volume, pages, year, etc. (Kumbhar, 2015). 3.2.1 Functions of citation The primary function of citation is to provide a connection between two documents, one which cites and the other which is cited (Kumar, 2004). Martyn (1975) suggested that citation measures are the indirect measures of use of a material. The references/citations are supposed to identify those earlier researchers whose concepts, methods, apparatus, etc. inspired him in developing his own theory, concept, method, apparatus, etc. Garfield (1965) has identified fifteen reasons as to why authors cite. These are: (i) Paying homage to pioneers, (ii) Giving credit for related work, (iii) Identifying methodology, equipment, etc., (iv) Providing background reading, (v) Correcting one’s own work, (vi) Correcting the work of others, (vii) Criticizing previous work, (viii) Substantiating claims, (ix) Alerting forthcoming work, (x) Providing leads to poorly disseminated, poorly indexed, or uncited work, (xi) Authenticating data and classes of fact- physical constants, etc., (xii) Identifying original publications in which an idea or concept was discussed, (xiii) Identifying original publications describing an eponymic concept or term, (xiv) Disclaiming work or ideas of others, (xv) Disputing priority claims of others. Martyn (1975) has given these some specific reasons for using citations. 119 3.2.2 Uses of Citation Guha (1999) has listed seven uses of citation. They are as follows: 1) Use as Bibliography - A reader can use a list of citations as a reading list. With the help of this list, direct communication between the author and his readers can be made. Such use of citations is usually made by the bibliographers, librarians, documentalists, etc. It is useful for a compilation of the bibliographies. 2) Preparation of ranked lists of periodicals - Compilation of lists of most frequently cited periodicals based on their frequent consultations can be made. One of the earliest of such lists was published in the journal Science in 1927 by Gross and Gross. This study presented a ranked list of periodicals in Chemistry as cited in the Journal of American Chemical Society. Such ranked list of periodicals on a subject can be used in the selection of periodicals for acquisition in the library. 3) Finding the relative use of documents - It is possible with the help of ranked lists. 4) Finding out useful life of documents - Age wise analysis of cited documents indicate the useful life of documents. This useful life has also been called as the ‘half-life’ of periodicals, sometimes expressed as the rate of obsolescence. This rate varies from subject to subject. Such findings not only indicate the rate of progress of the concerned subject but can be utilized, in the library, to determine the policy regarding the acquisition of back volumes of periodicals, sending the back volumes for dormitory shelving, etc. 5) Finding out relatedness and dependence of subject - Citation studies can provide an important clue regarding the relative impacts and dependence of journals on basic subjects. e.g. Botany, Zoology, etc. Such findings are helpful in determining the acquisition policy. 6) Finding out percentage or roots of subjects - Citation studies can also reveal the percentage of an interdisciplinary subject or any newly developing subject. 7) Citation studies from abstracting/indexing periodicals and their usefulness - Citation counting in abstracting and indexing periodicals also make some useful studies. Preparation of a ranked list according to journal productivity or according to the number of items contributed to different periodicals during a 120 year or any specific period of time in an abstracting or indexing periodical. Such lists indicate the contribution of each periodical or a group of periodicals to the total literature of the subject. Bradford’s law of scattering also indicates that about 50% of the contributions in a subject are concentrated in a few journals only. All such information can be utilized in the library for the proper selection of materials for procurement and also in searching the literature in response to the query. The above mentioned uses indicate the importance of citations in writing a research paper or completing the Ph.D.