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The mismeasure of science: Citation analysis
Author(s) -
MacRoberts Michael H.,
MacRoberts Barbara R.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.23970
Subject(s) - aside , criticism , citation analysis , citation , epistemology , sociology , computer science , political science , library science , law , philosophy , linguistics
For several decades we, among others, have criticized the use of citations for evaluative purposes. Although these criticisms have been noted, they have been largely brushed aside or ignored, not addressed head on. This may be for a number of reasons, but we believe the main one is that these criticisms undermine the desire to have an easy “scientific”—that is, quantitative—method of evaluation. Consequently, we continue and update our criticism of the use of citations for evaluation.