Characterizing the frequency of repeated citations: The effects of journal, subject area, and self-citation

Previous studies have repeatedly demonstrated that the relevance of a citing document is related to the number of times with which the source document is cited. Despite the ease with which electronic documents would permit the incorporation of this information into citation-based document search and retrieval systems, the possibilities of repeated citations remain untapped. Part of this under-utilization may be due to the fact that very little is known regarding the pattern of repeated citations in scholarly literature or how this pattern may vary as a function of journal, academic discipline or self-citation. The current research addresses these unanswered questions in order to facilitate the future incorporation of repeated citation information into document search and retrieval systems. Using data mining of electronic texts, the citation characteristics of nine different journals, covering the three different academic fields (economics, computing, and medicine & biology), were characterized. It was found that the frequency (f) with which a reference is cited N or more times within a document is consistent across the sampled journals and academic fields. Self-citation causes an increase in frequency, and this effect becomes more pronounced for large N. The objectivity, automatability, and insensitivity of repeated citations to journal and discipline, present powerful opportunities for improving citation-based document search.

► Pattern of repeated citations is characterized in nine journals and three topic areas.
► 30%, 5%, and 0.5% of references are cited 2, 5, or 10 or more times.
► Pattern is insensitive to research area and journal, for the sample studied.
► Pattern is sensitive to self-citation and the effect becomes more pronounced at large values of N.