Abstract
This paper reports part of a historical study of insecticide development. We analysed accumulated references to specific insecticide groups in text books, and index references to a large number of specific insecticides in theReview of Applied Entomology (Ser. A) over the period 1916–70. The paper describes our techniques for analysing the resulting research publication growth curves for these compounds. Our data did not fit the “classical” S-curves, and possible explanations for this are discussed. Bibliometric time series data may exhibit various inconsistencies, and we describe an approach to handling such “dirty data”. We concluded that; our quantitative approach produces a picture of the development of insecticides that fits the accepted view derived by qualitative historiography, is very sensitive to trends in pesticide research, and might be a useful adjunct to technology forecasting as well as to historical studies.
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We have accumulated a great deal of material on this project, unfortunately it has never been specifically funded and so we have been slow in getting it into publishable form. Hopefully, much of it will appear in a book now being written. Some material appears in the following: H. ROTHMAN, The changing pattern of research in economic entomology,Scientific World, XIII (1) (1969) 11. H. ROTHMAN, M. WOODHEAD, Publication trends in biological control,Nature, 220 (1969) 1053. H. ROTHMAN, M. WOODHEAD, The use of citation counting to identify research trends,Journal of Documentation, 27 (47) (1971) 287. H. ROTHMAN, Analysis of Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau ‘List of Research Workers in Agriculture, Animal Health and Forestry in the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland’ for economic entomology articles over the period 1936–1966, Mimeo, 1977, p. 23. H. ROTHMAN, Notes for Paper on Content Analysis of Journal of Economic Entomology Over the Period 1910–1973, Mimeo, 1977, p. 34. Several students completed MSc theses on aspects of the project (all at Manchester University, Department of Science and Technology Policy). G. LESTER,Citation Analysis of Scientific Research Papers, MSc, University of Manchester, 1970. M. WORBOYS,International Locust Research and Control, 1920–1952, MSc, University of Manchester, 1972. D. EVA,Toxicology and Society: an Assessment of the Control of Pestìcìde Use in Great Britain, MSc, University of Manchester, 1976. C. S. BRENNAN,The Historical Development and Origins of Synthetic Organic Chemical Insecticides, MSc, University of Manchester, 1976. G. LESTER,The Structuring and Retrieving of Scientific Literature Based Citation Indexes, PhD, University of Manchester, 1977.
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Rothman, H., Lester, G. The use of bibliometric indicators in the study of insecticide research. Scientometrics 8, 247–262 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02016939
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02016939