Measuring the influence of non-scientific features on citations

Citations remain a prime, yet controversial, measure of academic performance. Ideally, how often a paper is cited should solely depend on the quality of the science reported therein. However, non-scientific factors, including structural elements (e.g., length of abstract, number of references) or at...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientometrics 2022-07, Vol.127 (7), p.4123-4137
Main Authors: Mammola, Stefano, Piano, Elena, Doretto, Alberto, Caprio, Enrico, Chamberlain, Dan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bibliometrics
Citation analysis
Citations
Computer Science
Information Storage and Retrieval
Library Science
Meta-analysis
Scientific papers
Structural members
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Summary:Citations remain a prime, yet controversial, measure of academic performance. Ideally, how often a paper is cited should solely depend on the quality of the science reported therein. However, non-scientific factors, including structural elements (e.g., length of abstract, number of references) or attributes of authors (e.g., prestige and gender), may all influence citation outcomes. Knowing the predicted effect of these features on citations might make it possible to ‘game the system’ of citation counts when writing a paper. We conducted a meta-analysis to build a quantitative understanding of the effect of similar non-scientific features on the impact of scientific articles in terms of citations. We showed that article length, number of authors, author experience and their collaboration network, Impact Factors, availability as open access, online sharing, different referencing practice, and number of figures all exerted a positive influence on citations. These patterns were consistent across most disciplines. We also documented temporal trends towards a recent increase in the effect of journal Impact Factor and number of authors on citations. We suggest that our approach can be used as a benchmark to monitor the influence of these effects over time, minimising the influence of non-scientific features as a means to game the system of citation counts, and thus enhancing their usefulness as a measure of scientific quality.
ISSN:0138-9130
1588-2861
DOI:10.1007/s11192-022-04421-7