The incidence and role of negative citations in science #MMPMID26504239
Catalini C; Lacetera N; Oettl A
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2015[Nov]; 112 (45): 13823-6 PMID26504239show ga
Providing a detailed classification of the types of citations that an article receives is important to establish the quality of a study and to characterize how current research builds upon prior work. The methodology that we propose also informs how to improve the citation process, for example by having scientists attach additional metadata to their citations. The approach is scalable to other fields and periods and can also be used to identify other types of citations (e.g., reuse of methods, materials, empirical tests of theory, and so on). Finally, our methods provide online repositories such as Google Scholar, PubMed, ISI Web of Science, and Scopus with a way to improve their search and ranking algorithms.