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A study on the citation situation within the citing paper: citation distribution of references according to mention frequency

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Abstract

Citation impact indicators play a significant role in evaluating the scientific research activity. Most of citation impact indicators are based on the citation count that the publication is cited as a reference in the other publications, but the difference between each citation situation was not considered. Normally, the number of citations that a publication is cited in the other publications may represent the formal quality of the publication. Similarly, the number of times that a publication is really mentioned within the citing publication, it may also represent the formal quality of the citation. We have examined about how many times each reference was really mentioned within the citing publications and studied about the citation situation within the citing publications. We verified that the citation distribution of references according to the mention frequency follows the Generalized Pareto distribution. The results showed that about 20% of total references were mentioned three and more times, and the number of citation mentions for the about 50% of total references were from about 20% of the total references in the citing publications.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71531013 and 71704035). Authors would like to express sincere thanks to the editors and reviewers of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China

    CholMyong Pak, Guang Yu & Weibin Wang

  2. Kim Il Sung University, Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

    CholMyong Pak

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  1. CholMyong Pak
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  2. Guang Yu
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  3. Weibin Wang
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Correspondence to CholMyong Pak.

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Pak, C., Yu, G. & Wang, W. A study on the citation situation within the citing paper: citation distribution of references according to mention frequency. Scientometrics 114, 905–918 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2627-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2627-0

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