Skip to main content

Non-citable but not Uncited: A Large-Scale Citation Analysis of Editorials

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Linking Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2023)

Abstract

It is widely recognized that the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) can be subject to manipulation, and one such strategy is to publish more editorials. Editorials are considered non-citable and thus excluded from the JIF denominator despite being cited and contributing substantially to the numerator. The strategy is successful if the editorials are cited. Thus, increasing the scientific content of the editorials may result in higher citation counts. This study analyzes the number of editorials published across fields and citations to these to examine if editorials with more scientific content are more cited than editorials with less scientific content. The results show that there is no indication of a general increase over time in editorials with longer reference lists, even though editorials with longer reference lists are found to be cited more.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Haunschild, R., Bornmann, L.: Relevance of document types in the scores’ calculation of a specific field-normalized indicator: are the scores strongly dependent on or nearly independent of the document type handling? Scientometrics 127, 4419–4438 (2022)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ioannidis, J.P.A., Boyack, K., Wouters, P.F.: Citation metrics: a primer on how (not) to normalize. PLoS Biol. 14, e1002542 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Leydesdorff, L.: Alternatives to the journal impact factor: I3 and the top-10%(or top-25%?) of the most-highly cited papers. Scientometrics 92, 355–365 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Bensman, S.J.: Distributional differences of the impact factor in the sciences versus the social sciences: an analysis of the probabilistic structure of the 2005 journal citation reports. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 59, 1366–1382 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Larivière, V., et al.: A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions. BioRxiv 062109 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  6. McVeigh, M.E., Mann, S.J.: The journal impact factor denominator: defining citable (counted) items. JAMA 302, 1107–1109 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. http://help.incites.clarivate.com/incitesLiveJCR/9607-TRS/version/17

  8. Reedijk, J., Moed, H.F.: Is the impact of journal impact factors decreasing? J. Doc. 64, 183–192 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Campanario, J.M., González, L.: Journal self-citations that contribute to the impact factor: documents labeled “editorial material” in journals covered by the Science Citation Index. Scientometrics 69, 365–386 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Frandsen, T.F.: On the ratio of citable versus non-citable items in economics journals. Scientometrics 74, 439–451 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Heneberg, P.: Parallel worlds of citable documents and others: inflated commissioned opinion articles enhance scientometric indicators. J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol. 65, 635–643 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Liu, X.L., Gai, S.S., Zhou, J.: Journal impact factor: do the numerator and denominator need correction? PLoS One 11 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Taşkın, Z., Doğan, G., Kulczycki, E., Zuccala, A.A.: Self-citation patterns of journals indexed in the journal citation reports. J. Informetr. 15, 101221 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Moed, H.F., Van Leeuwen, T.N.: Improving the accuracy of institute for scientific information’s journal impact factors. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. 46, 461–467 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hu, X., Rousseau, R.: Meeting abstracts: a waste of space? Curr. Sci. 105, 150–151 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Xue-Li, L., Ya-Hui, W., Shuang-Shuang, G.: Citation characteristics of non-citable documents and contributions to journal impact factor. Curr. Sci. 114, 1423–1429 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C.R.: The journal impact factor: a brief history, critique, and discussion of adverse effects. In: Glänzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch, U., Thelwall, M. (eds.) Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02511-3_1

  18. Bornmann, L., Neuhaus, C., Daniel, H.-D.: The effect of a two-stage publication process on the Journal Impact Factor: a case study on the interactive open access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Scientometrics 86, 93–97 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Price, D.J.: Citation measures of hard science, soft science, technology, and nonscience. Commun. Among Sci. Eng. 1, 3r22 (1970)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tove Faber Frandsen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Frandsen, T.F., Nicolaisen, J. (2023). Non-citable but not Uncited: A Large-Scale Citation Analysis of Editorials. In: Alonso, O., Cousijn, H., Silvello, G., Marrero, M., Teixeira Lopes, C., Marchesin, S. (eds) Linking Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries. TPDL 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14241. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43849-3_8

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43849-3_8

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-43848-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-43849-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics