1. Biology

Hidden citations in physics

Within the scientific literature, a quotation acts as a mechanism to sign prior data, improve credibility, and shield towards plagiarism. Nevertheless it additionally provides credit score to the person or workforce who established or found the data in query, and citations have thus emerged as a metric to measure the influence of a piece or researcher. Nevertheless, when a discovery or method turns into frequent data, scientists typically cease bothering to quote it. Thus, probably the most impactful work is commonly undercited. Albert-László Barabási and colleagues from Northeastern College tried to detect hidden citations within the physics literature through the use of machine studying to robotically detect phrases representing in-text allusions to 343 particular discoveries that may every be traced again to a foundational paper. For instance, papers utilizing the phrase “quantum discord” are nearly definitely utilizing ideas that derive from a 2001 paper by Harold Ollivier and Wojciech H. Zurek, however the concepts in that work have change into so widespread that greater than a 3rd of papers that interact with quantum discord fail to quote the foundational paper. In some circumstances, citations are diverted to different works, comparable to evaluations or books on the subject. Generally, papers have a tendency to accumulate hidden citations on the identical price as they purchase specific citations, however there’s appreciable variation from paper to paper. For instance, the 1981 paper by Alan H. Guth introducing the cosmological inflation idea has acquired 8.8 occasions extra hidden citations than specific citations. Had been these hidden citations made specific, this paper can be probably the most cited paper on the preprint database arXiv. In line with the authors, hidden citations signify a “worth” of success. The extra influential an thought is, the extra doubtless it’s to change into so acquainted and properly understood that researchers now not really feel the necessity to explicitly cite the supply.

Hidden citations

Credit score: BarabasiLab [Alice Grishchenko ([email protected]), Xiangyi Meng ([email protected]), and Albert-László Barabási ([email protected])]

Within the scientific literature, a quotation acts as a mechanism to sign prior data, improve credibility, and shield towards plagiarism. Nevertheless it additionally provides credit score to the person or workforce who established or found the data in query, and citations have thus emerged as a metric to measure the influence of a piece or researcher. Nevertheless, when a discovery or method turns into frequent data, scientists typically cease bothering to quote it. Thus, probably the most impactful work is commonly undercited. Albert-László Barabási and colleagues from Northeastern College tried to detect hidden citations within the physics literature through the use of machine studying to robotically detect phrases representing in-text allusions to 343 particular discoveries that may every be traced again to a foundational paper. For instance, papers utilizing the phrase “quantum discord” are nearly definitely utilizing ideas that derive from a 2001 paper by Harold Ollivier and Wojciech H. Zurek, however the concepts in that work have change into so widespread that greater than a 3rd of papers that interact with quantum discord fail to quote the foundational paper. In some circumstances, citations are diverted to different works, comparable to evaluations or books on the subject. Generally, papers have a tendency to accumulate hidden citations on the identical price as they purchase specific citations, however there’s appreciable variation from paper to paper. For instance, the 1981 paper by Alan H. Guth introducing the cosmological inflation idea has acquired 8.8 occasions extra hidden citations than specific citations. Had been these hidden citations made specific, this paper can be probably the most cited paper on the preprint database arXiv. In line with the authors, hidden citations signify a “worth” of success. The extra influential an thought is, the extra doubtless it’s to change into so acquainted and properly understood that researchers now not really feel the necessity to explicitly cite the supply.


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