A mathematical theory of citing Export

@misc{citeulike:163473, abstract = {Recently we proposed a model in which when a scientist writes a manuscript, he picks up several random papers, cites them and also copies a fraction of their references (<A HREF="/abs/cond-mat/0305150">cond-mat/0305150</A>). The model was stimulated by our discovery that a majority of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers (<A HREF="/abs/cond-mat/0212043">cond-mat/0212043</A>). It accounted quantitatively for several properties of empirically observed distribution of citations. However, important features, such as power-law distribution of citations to papers published during the same year and the fact that the average rate of citing decreases with aging of a paper, were not accounted for by that model. Here we propose a modified model: when a scientist writes a manuscript, he picks up several random recent papers, cites them and also copies some of their references. The difference with the original model is the word recent. We solve the model using methods of the theory of branching processes, and find that it can explain the aforementioned features of citation distribution, which our original model couldn't account for. The model can also explain "sleeping beauties in science", i.e., papers that are little cited for a decade or so, and later "awake" and get a lot of citations. Although much can be understood from purely random models, we find that to obtain a good quantitative agreement with empirical citation data one must introduce Darwinian fitness parameter for the papers.}, archivePrefix = {arXiv}, author = {Simkin, M. and Roychowdhury, V.}, citeulike-article-id = {163473}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0504094}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0504094}, comment = {"modified model of random-citing scientists: when a scientist writes a manuscript he picks up several random recent papers cites them and also copies some of their references3. The difference with the original model is the word recent. We solve this model using methods of the theory of branching processes" "average citation rate decreases with the increase of time lapsed since publication of the paper in question" "Empirically it was found that citations to papers published during the same year are distributed according to a power-law (see the ISI dataset in Fig.1(a) of Ref. [13])" "older papers are considered for possible citing only if they were recently cited. \# if a citation to an old paper is followed and \# the paper is formally read – scientific qualities of that paper do not influence its chance of being cited." "Darwinian fitness, which is a bibliometric measure of scientific fangs and claws that help a paper to fight for citations with its competitors" "It was recently established [4] that majority of scientific citations are not read by the citing authors. This should affect citation distribution in the model with fitness, because when paper is not read its qualities can not affect its chance of being cited." "Only ten years after its publication did the paper get recognition, and got cited widely and increasingly. Such papers are called ” Sleeping Beauties”[26]."}, day = {14}, eprint = {physics/0504094}, keywords = {citation}, month = {April}, posted-at = {2006-07-07 09:05:58}, priority = {0}, title = {A mathematical theory of citing}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0504094}, year = {2005} }

TY - ELEC ID - citeulike:163473 L3 - citeulike-article-id:163473 N2 - Recently we proposed a model in which when a scientist writes a manuscript, he picks up several random papers, cites them and also copies a fraction of their references (<A HREF="/abs/cond-mat/0305150">cond-mat/0305150</A>). The model was stimulated by our discovery that a majority of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers (<A HREF="/abs/cond-mat/0212043">cond-mat/0212043</A>). It accounted quantitatively for several properties of empirically observed distribution of citations. However, important features, such as power-law distribution of citations to papers published during the same year and the fact that the average rate of citing decreases with aging of a paper, were not accounted for by that model. Here we propose a modified model: when a scientist writes a manuscript, he picks up several random recent papers, cites them and also copies some of their references. The difference with the original model is the word recent. We solve the model using methods of the theory of branching processes, and find that it can explain the aforementioned features of citation distribution, which our original model couldn't account for. The model can also explain "sleeping beauties in science", i.e., papers that are little cited for a decade or so, and later "awake" and get a lot of citations. Although much can be understood from purely random models, we find that to obtain a good quantitative agreement with empirical citation data one must introduce Darwinian fitness parameter for the papers. TI - A mathematical theory of citing KW - citation N1 - "modified model of random-citing scientists: when a scientist writes a manuscript he picks up several random recent papers cites them and also copies some of their references3. The difference with the original model is the word recent. We solve this model using methods of the theory of branching processes" "average citation rate decreases with the increase of time lapsed since publication of the paper in question" "Empirically it was found that citations to papers published during the same year are distributed according to a power-law (see the ISI dataset in Fig.1(a) of Ref. [13])" "older papers are considered for possible citing only if they were recently cited. # if a citation to an old paper is followed and # the paper is formally read – scientific qualities of that paper do not influence its chance of being cited." "Darwinian fitness, which is a bibliometric measure of scientific fangs and claws that help a paper to fight for citations with its competitors" "It was recently established [4] that majority of scientific citations are not read by the citing authors. This should affect citation distribution in the model with fitness, because when paper is not read its qualities can not affect its chance of being cited." "Only ten years after its publication did the paper get recognition, and got cited widely and increasingly. Such papers are called “Sleeping Beauties”[26]." AU - Simkin, M AU - Roychowdhury, V PY - 2005/04/14/ UR - http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0504094 ER -