Open AccessUniversality of citation distributions revisited
Author(s) -
Waltman Ludo,
van Eck Nees Jan,
van Raan Anthony F. J.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1532-2890
pISSN - 1532-2882
DOI - 10.1002/asi.21671
Subject(s) - citation , universality (dynamical systems) , citation analysis , scaling , impact factor , computer science , citation impact , data science , statistical physics , mathematics , physics , political science , library science , quantum mechanics , law , geometry
Radicchi, Fortunato, and Castellano (2008) claim that, apart from a scaling factor, all fields of science are characterized by the same citation distribution. We present a large‐scale validation study of this universality‐of‐citation‐distributions claim. Our analysis shows that claiming citation distributions to be universal for all fields of science is not warranted. Although many fields indeed seem to have fairly similar citation distributions, there are exceptions as well. We also briefly discuss the consequences of our findings for the measurement of scientific impact using citation‐based bibliometric indicators.