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THE LAW OF CONSTANT CITATION FOR SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE

Journal of DocumentationPublished 1 February 1968
M.C. GOMPERTS
Citations19
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score0.79
SNIP1.63

TL;DR

In listing the literature concerning the subject of ‘vibrating plates’ the following law was noticed: Rj x aj,t=constant=5·6 where Rj is the ‘citation factor’ for the year, j, and aJ,t stands for the total number of articles that have appeared up to and including year j.

Abstract

In listing the literature concerning the subject of ‘vibrating plates’ the following law was noticed: Rj x aj,t=constant=5·6 where Rj is the ‘citation factor’ for the year, j, and aj,t stands for the total number of articles that have appeared up to and including year j. ‘This ‘citation law’ is based on the remarkable fact that in more than 150 years the mean number of relevant citations per article per year has remained constant, viz. 2·8, in spite of the fact that after 1950 three times as many articles have been published as in the period before 1950.

Keywords

Decision SciencesPhysics and Astronomy