Abstract
In this study we show that it is possible to identify top-cited publications other than Web of Science (WoS) publications, particularly non-journal publications, within fields in the social and behavioral sciences. We analyzed references in publications that were themselves highly cited, with at least one European address. Books represent between 62 (psychology) and 81% (political science) of the non-WoS references, journal articles 15–24%. Books (economics, political science) and manuals (psychology) account for the most highly cited publications. Between 50 (psychology, political science) and 71% (economics) of the top-ranked most cited publications originated from the US versus between 18 (economics) and 38% (psychology) from Europe. Finally, it is discussed how the methods and procedures of the study can be optimized.
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Notes
Thomson Reuters, the former Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in Philadelphia, is the producer and publisher of the Web of Science (WoS) that covers the Science Citation Index (extended), the Social Science Citation Index and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index. Throughout this paper we use the term ‘WoS’ for the above set of databases.
See Nederhof (2006) for a recent overview of the empirical and theoretical backgrounds concerning the differences in citation and publication patterns between the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities on the one hand and the sciences on the other hand.
Nederlands Observatorium voor Wetenschap en Technologie (Netherlands Observatory for Science and Technology), see www.nowt.nl.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Bert van der Wurff for his assistance in the data analysis and in the identification of the publications behind the large amount of references strings.
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Nederhof, A.J., van Leeuwen, T.N. & van Raan, A.F.J. Highly cited non-journal publications in political science, economics and psychology: a first exploration. Scientometrics 83, 363–374 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0086-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0086-y