Does a long reference list guarantee more citations? Analysis of Malaysian highly cited and review pPapers

Earlier publications have shown that the number of references as well as the number of received citations are field-dependent. Consequently, a long reference list may lead to more citations. The purpose of this article is to study the concrete relationship between number of references and citation counts. This article tries to find an answer for the concrete case of Malaysian highly cited papers and Malaysian review papers. Malaysian paper is a paper with at least one Malaysian affiliation. A total of 2466 papers consisting of two sets, namely 1966 review papers and 500 highly-cited articles, are studied. The statistical analysis shows that an increase in the number of references leads to a slight increase in the number of citations. Yet, this increase is not statistically significant. Therefore, a researcher should not try to increase the number of received citations by artificially increasing the number of references

Citations increase with manuscript length, author number, and references cited in ecology journals

Most top impact factor ecology journals indicate a preference or requirement for short manuscripts; some state clearly defined word limits, whereas others indicate a preference for more concise papers. Yet evidence from a variety of academic fields indicates that within journals longer papers are both more positively reviewed by referees and more highly cited. We examine the relationship between citations received and manuscript length, number of authors, and number of references cited for papers published in 32 ecology journals between 2009 and 2012. We find that longer papers, those with more authors, and those that cite more references are cited more. Although paper length, author count, and references cited all positively covary, an increase in each independently predicts an increase in citations received, with estimated relationships positive for all the journals we examined. That all three variables covary positively with citations suggests that papers presenting more and a greater diversity of data and ideas are more impactful. We suggest that the imposition of arbitrary manuscript length limits discourages the publication of more impactful studies. We propose that journals abolish arbitrary word or page limits, avoid declining papers (or requiring shortening) on the basis of length alone (irrespective of content), and adopt the philosophy that papers should be as long as they need to be

Referencing patterns of individual researchers: do top scientists rely on more extensive information sources?

FSW - CWTS - Ou

Referencing patterns of individual researchers: Do top scientists rely on more extensive information sources?

FSW - CWTS - Ou

Correlation between references and citations

There are various opinions on the possible correlation between references and citations. The main question is that is there a positive correlation between the number of times a paper is cited (citations received) and the number of its references? Some of the researchers have stated that there is no or low relationship between references and citations; while others have showed evidences on a given powerful relationship. The present study, in response to this question, aims to find out an adequate answer to this problem based on the existed literature. To achieve this purpose, various opinions are considered, the diversity in interpretation of the problem is illustrated, the review is done and a sufficient conclusion is presented. This study shows that such relationships can be used as basis for predictions, by extrapolation, assuming that the publication and citation practices of authors will remain stable in the future. Results of this research can shed light on the current status of the problem