Who are the research disciples of an author? Examining publication recitation and oeuvre citation exhaustivity

Recitation patterns for individual publications are examined and mathematically modeled by focusing on the origin of citations (citers) using data from Thomson Reuters Web of Science. The authors outline oeuvre citation exhaustivity, or the practice of citing across the body of work of an author, and model the resulting frequency distributions to identify research disciples and admirers. A Geeta distribution provided the best fits for both recitation frequency and oeuvre citation exhaustivity distributions. The findings provide a novel way to identify the influence of an author based on citer analysis.

Research highlights▶ A method for identifying research disciples and admirers is outlined. ▶ Publication recitation and oeuvre citation exhaustivity are mathematically modeled. ▶ Geeta and Lotka models provided the best fits. ▶ Frequent citers across the oeuvre of an author are more likely to be co-authors.