Summary
We present empirical data on frequency and pattern of misprints in citations to twelve high-profile papers. We find that the distribution of misprints, ranked by frequency of their repetition, follows Zipf's law. We propose a stochastic model of citation process, which explains these findings, and leads to the conclusion that about 70-90% of scientific citations are copied from the lists of references used in other papers.
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Keiser, J., Utzinger, J. Trends in the core literature on tropical medicine: a bibliometric analysis from 1952-2002. Scientometrics 62, 351–365 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-005-0027-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-005-0027-3