ABSTRACT

Much informetric research is based on the analysis of the citations that authors make to the publications of other scholars and researchers, whose work they have used in their own articles and books. If such measures are to be useful for understanding scientific recognition and the ways in which scientific results build on earlier work, then an understanding of the motivations of the people doing the citing can be helpful in evaluating the validity of the research based on the citation analysis.—ELIS Classic, from 1988