Publishing abroad: Fair trade or short sell for non-English-speaking authors? A Spanish study

Abstract

We investigated the integration into the international scientific literature of articles published by researchers at the University of Granada (Spain) between 1976 and 1987, in journals published outside of Spain. The Science Citation Index was used to measure integration, and the articles were classified for comparison into eight fields (clinical medicine, experimental medicine, geology, chemistry, physics, biology, pharmaceutical science and mathematics). The minimum criterion for integration was considered fulfilled when the size of the two communities of citing authors considered (Spanish and non-Spanish) was equal, i.e., when the absolute number of citations in both communities was equal. On the basis of this criterion, articles in clinical medicine and experimental medicine were found to be integrated into the international literature. The regression lines for the number of citations per year in each field in the two communities of citing authors were parallel, indicating that integration of Spanish publications in these two fields was stationary. Of the fields found not to be integrated, the lines for pharmaceutical science citations in the two communities indicated little sign of future change in the proportion of Spanish to non-Spanish citations. Citations in the remaining five fields indicated a steady decrease in integration. We introduce the concept of the “drag effect” of national citations on citation indices in the international literature: a sharp increase in the number of Spanish articles published in non-Spanish journals may exceed the capacity of the international community to “absorb”, understand and cite these new publications.