Cited by 149scientometrics and bibliometrics researchAcademic Writing and PublishingPsychology Research and Bibliometrics

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 132 of the 133 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 184 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Core elements in the process of citing publications: Conceptual overview of the literature

Open access
Tahamtan, Iman, Bornmann, Lutz·2018·Journal of Informetrics

Abstract

Abstract This study provides a conceptual overview of the literature dealing with the process of citing documents (focusing on the literature from the recent decade). It presents theories, which have been proposed for explaining the citation process, and studies having empirically analyzed this process. The overview is referred to as conceptual, because it is structured based on core elements in the citation process: the context of the cited document, processes from selection to citation of documents, and the context of the citing document. The core elements are presented in a schematic representation. The overview can be used to find answers on basic questions about the practice of citing documents. Besides understanding of the process of citing, it delivers basic information for the proper application of citations in research evaluation.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This conceptual overview synthesizes literature on the citation process, organizing it around three core elements: the cited document, the process from selection to citation, and the citing document. It catalogs citation theories, document/author/journal features, reasons to cite, and decision rules, and argues the framework can inform interpretation of citation analyses in research evaluation.

Key findings

  • The citation process is structured into three core elements: the cited document, processes from selection to citation, and the citing document; each element includes document, author, and journal features as well as document values (epistemic, functional, conditional, social, emotional).
  • The paper lists 13 main reasons to cite, including classical/founder, persuasive, affirmational, perfunctory, critical/negational, methodological/operational, background reading, understanding, conceptual, claiming, alerting, contrastive, and assumptive; it also describes decision rules such as elimination, multiple-criteria, dominance, scarcity, satisfice, and chain.
  • Empirical examples include Frandsen and Nicolaisen (2017), who compared 67,578 pairs of studies and found that documents selected for citation had on average about three times as many citations as unselected documents; Catalini et al. (2015) identified 2.4% of citations in the *Journal of Immunology* as negative.
  • Citation-location findings include Bornmann and Daniel (2008a), who reported 32% of citations in introductions, 24% in methods, 13% in results, and 31% in discussions; Cano (1989) reported the highest citation concentration in the first 15% of the citing document, with perfunctory citations comprising 33% there and organic citations 32% in the middle and 41% at the end.

Methods

  • Conceptual overview of the literature; the search was conducted in 2017 and included all document types.
  • Search steps: first, tables of contents of information science journals (*Journal of Documentation*, *Scientometrics*, *Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology*, *Journal of Informetrics*); second, reference lists of prior reviews; then bibliogram-derived keywords searched in Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar, plus identification of citing publications for highly cited papers.
  • The synthesis is structured around three core elements and presented in a schematic representation (Figure 1).

Limitations

  • The paper states it was not planned as a complete review of the extensive literature; it focuses on historical landmark papers and literature published in recent years (since 2008).
  • Evident from the text: it is a conceptual, narrative overview rather than a systematic review, with no reported formal quality appraisal, meta-analysis, or exhaustive search protocol.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.joi.2018.01.002

Cites

132 of 132 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 184 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 70 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 54
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 130
153 of 153
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The empirical literature on citations is mostly rooted in the normative or social-constructivist theories.

    “The current study is intended to synthesize the empirical literature on citations, which is mostly rooted in the normative or social-constructivist theories.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The core elements identified in the literature are the most important elements in the citation process.

    “it points to the most important elements - the core elements - in the citation process.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The literature reviewed is comprehensive enough to identify the core elements of the citation process.

    “These core elements have been identified in the manifold literature on the process and condensed in a schematic representation.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Citation reasons and values can be reliably inferred from citing documents.

    “using their perceived values in the citing document, new kinds of citation analyses seem possible”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Authors consider a certain document further if they perceive some values in the document.

    “Authors consider a certain document further if they perceive some values in the document.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    These values determine the applied decision rules for selecting the document and reasons to cite.

    “These values determine the applied decision rules for selecting the document and reasons to cite.”
6 of 6

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • The sixth decision rule is named inconsistently

    Minor

    The list names "sacrifice" as a decision rule, but the subsequent descriptions instead name and define a "satisfice" rule. No sacrifice rule is described.

  • Citation locations are assigned to opposite document roles

    Minor

    The section describes citation locations as being in cited documents, then describes the same subject as locations in the citing document. The paper distinguishes these as different document roles.

2 of 2

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 133 references

1 of the 133 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. Garfield, 1962, Can citation indexing be automated, Essays of an Information Scientist, 1, 84
  2. Hug, 2014, A framework to explore and develop criteria for assessing research quality in the humanities, International Journal for Education Law and Policy, 10, 55
  3. Liu, 1997, Citation theories in the framework of international flow of information: New evidence with translation analysis, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 48, 80
  4. Wang, 1999, A cognitive model of document use during a research project. Study II. Decisions at the reading and citing stages, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 50, 98

Cited by

Sorted by citations

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Metadata

Authors
Tahamtan, I., & Bornmann, L.
Affiliations
  • University of Tennessee at Knoxville (US)
  • Max Planck Society (DE)
Corresponding author
Tahamtan, Iman
Venue
Journal of Informetrics
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-02
Volume
12
Issue
1
Pages
203-216
ISSN
1751-1577 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2779231960
Cited by
149
References
133
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 12
FWCI
13.71
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Informetrics (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Social Sciences › Library and Information Sciences › Academic Writing and Publishing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
Keywords
citation theory, document selection, citation context, research evaluation, bibliometric analysis

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.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-06, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-06 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

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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