Cited by 5,345scientometrics and bibliometrics researchWeb visibility and informetricsLibrary Science and Information

Co‐citation in the scientific literature: A new measure of the relationship between two documents

Small, Henry·1973·Journal of the American Society for Information Science

Abstract

A new form of document coupling called co‐citation is defined as the frequency with which two documents are cited together. The co‐citation frequency of two scientific papers can be determined by comparing lists of citing documents in the Science Citation Index and counting identical entries. Networks of co‐cited papers can be generated for specific scientific specialties, and an example is drawn from the literature of particle physics. Co‐citation patterns are found to differ significantly from bibliographic coupling patterns, but to agree generally with patterns of direct citation. Clusters of co‐cited papers provide a new way to study the specialty structure of science. They may provide a new approach to indexing and to the creation of SDI profiles.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/asi.4630240406

Cites

9 of 9 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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  • Co-citation analysis can be used in authors and/or publications order to track and study the relationship between authors, topics, journals or keywords.

    “Co-citation analysis can be used in authors and/or publications order to track and study the relationship between authors, topics, journals or keywords (Small 1973;Pilkington and Liston Heyes 1999).”

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Authors
Small, H.
Corresponding author
Small, Henry
Venue
Journal of the American Society for Information Science
Publisher
Wiley
Published
1973-07
Volume
24
Issue
4
Pages
265-269
ISSN
  • 0002-8231 (ISSN-L)
  • 1097-4571
OpenAlex
W2005207065
Cited by
5,345
References
9
Citations by year
2026: 413 · 2025: 466 · 2024: 467 · 2023: 522 · 2022: 569 · 2021: 421 · 2020: 357 · 2019: 275 · 2018: 209 · 2017: 156 · 2016: 158 · 2015: 144 · 2014: 123 · 2013: 111 · 2012: 117
FWCI
9.57
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Journal of the American Society for Information Science (publishedVersion)
Funders
Drexel University
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Library Science and Information
Keywords
co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, citation analysis, citation patterns, Science Citation Index, subject indexing

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

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