Abstract
Letters to the editor published in theLancet during the first half of 1980 were less cited than the corresponding papers. The average number of citations per letter was larger if the letter contained some substantive information. The longer the letter the more frequently it was cited. Letters that react to some previous publication tend to be shorter than “spontaneous” letters. “Reacting” letters tend to be less cited than spontaneous letters if they are short, more cited if they are longer. Letters with substantive information tend to originate outside the UK in which case they are also more cited.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
T. Braun, W. Glänzel, A. Schubert, Assessing assessment of British science: some facts and figures to accept or decline,Scientometrics, 15 (1989) 165.
T. Braun, W. Glänzel, A. Schubert, Some data on the distribution of journal publication types in the Science Citation Index database,Scientometrics, 15 (1989) 325.
E. Garfield, Which medical journals have the greatest impact?Annals of Internal Medicine, 105 (1986) 313.
J.S. Ghosh, Uncitedness of articles in Nature, a multidisciplinary scientific journal,Information Processing and Management, 11 (1975) 165.
D. De Solla Price, Network of scientific papers,Science, 149 (1967) 510.
R. Testi, How international are medical journals?Lancet, (1982, December 25) 1473.
K. Kaneiwa, J. Adachi, M. Aoki, T. Masuda, N. Midorikawa, A. Tanimura, S. Yamazaki, A comparison between the journals Nature and Science,Scientometrics, 13 (1988) 125.
S. Siegel,Nonparametric statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, New York; McGraw Hill, 1956.
P. Van Elteren, On the combination of independent two sample tests of Wilcoxon,Bulletin de l'Institut International de Statistique, 37 (1960) 351.
B.R. Martin, J. Irvine, F. Narin, C. Sterritt, The continuing decline of British science,Nature, 330 (1987, November 12) 123.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Dedicated to the memory of Michael J. Moravcsik
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peritz, B.C. The citation impact of letters to the editor; The case of Lancet. Scientometrics 20, 121–129 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02018150
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02018150