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Cited by 693scientometrics and bibliometrics researchPsychology Research and BibliometricsWeb visibility and informetrics

Some Results on the Function and Quality of Citations

Moravcsik, Michael J., Murugesan, Poovanalingam·1975·Social Studies of Science
DOI 10.1177/030631277500500106
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Abstract

Citations of scientific articles have been used in recent years as measures of scientific accomplishments of an individual, a group, an institution, or a country, as well as for following the temporal evolution of science in general, or a certain field of science in particular.' The use of citations for this purpose has evoked a certain amount of criticism from some who have felt that, for a variety of reasons, such measures give an ambiguous or even misleading picture of scientific developments.2 Most of these critiques, however, have lacked the

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Crossref · 10.1177/030631277500500106

Cites

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Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

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

  • Most prior efforts provide citation categories that are too fine-grained, some of which rarely occur in papers.

    “Most of these efforts provide citation categories that are too fine-grained, some of which rarely occur in papers.”

    From Structural Scaffolds for Citation Intent Classification in Scientific Publications (2019) · cites this paper as Moravcsik and Murugesan, 1975

  • Moravcsik and Murugesan (1975) found that the majority of citations could be assigned to the categories valuable (69 percent), organic (60 percent), and evolutionary (59 percent).

    “The results in Table I show that the majority of the citations could be assigned to the categories valuable (69 percent), organic (60 percent), and evolutionary (59 percent).”

    From What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior (2008) · cites this paper as Moravcsik and Murugesan (1975)

  • The high number of redundant references (31 percent) was seen to cast doubt on the assumptions of the normative theory and thus the use of citations as an indicator for research impact.

    “In addition, the high number of redundant references (31 percent) was seen to cast doubt on the assumptions of the normative theory and thus the use of citations as an indicator for research impact.”

    From What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior (2008) · cites this paper as Moravcsik and Murugesan (1975)

  • Only about 14 percent of the citations cited publications that the authors of the articles refer to as wrong or disputed papers.

    “Only about 14 percent of the citations cited publications that the authors of the articles refer to as wrong or disputed papers.”

    From What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior (2008) · cites this paper as Moravcsik and Murugesan (1975)

  • Moravcsik and Murugesan (1975) concluded that the large fraction (41 percent) of perfunctory references raised serious doubts about the use of citations as a quality measure.

    “But they also concluded that the large fraction (41 percent) of perfunctory references raised serious doubts 'about the use of citations as a quality measure, since it is then quite possible for somebody or some group to chalk up high citation counts by simply writing barely publishable papers on fashionable subjects which will then be cited as perfunctory, 'also ran' references'”

    From What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior (2008) · cites this paper as Moravcsik and Murugesan (1975)

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Authors
Moravcsik, M. J., & Murugesan, P.
Affiliations
University of Oregon (US)
Venue
Social Studies of Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
1975-02
Volume
5
Issue
1
Pages
86-92
ISSN
  • 0036-8539 (ISSN-L)
  • 0306-3127
  • 1460-3659
DOI
10.1177/030631277500500106
OpenAlex
W2150569271
Cited by
693
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 20 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 34 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 35 · 2012: 20
FWCI
24.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
Social Studies of Science (publishedVersion)
Funders
University of Oregon
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychology Research and Bibliometrics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Web visibility and informetrics
Keywords
citation analysis, scientific citations, bibliometric analysis, science assessment, research evaluation

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.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

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