Abstract
After a brief discussion on the normalization factors allowing the quantitative comparison between various disciplines, a formula is proposed for taking into account the value of citations to papers published in journals with different impact factors.
References
E. Garfield, The ‘obliteration phenomenon’ in science - and the advantage of being obliterated!,Current Contents, December 22, 1975, No. 51/52 (1975), reprinted inEssays of an Information Scientist, 2 (1974–1976) 396–398;E. Garfield, Uses and misuses of citation frequency,Current Contents, October 28, 1985, No. 43 (1985), reprinted inEssays of an Information Scientist, 8 (1985) 403–409.
E. Garfield,Citation Indexing. Its Theory and Applications in Science, Technology, and Humanities, Wiley, New York, 1979.
A. Schubert, T. Braun, Cross-field normalization of scientometrics indicators,Scientometrics, 36 (1996) 311–324.
W. Glänzel, A. Schubert, Characteristic scores and scales in assessing citation impact,Journal of Information Science, 14 (1988) 123–127.
T. Braun, W. Glänzel, A. Schubert, Subject field characteristic scores and scales in assessing research performance,Scientometrics, 12 (1987) 267–292.
A. Schubert, T. Braun, Relative indicators and relational charts for comparative assessment of publication output and citation impact,Scientometrics, 9 (1986) 281.
G. Hirst, Discipline impact factors: a method for determining copre journal list,Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 29 (1978) 171–172.
I. Marshakova-Shaikevich, The standard impact factor of science fields and scientific journals,Scientometrics, 35 (1996) 283–290.
E. Garfield, Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation,Science, 178 (1972) 471–479.
E. Garfield, The impact factor,Current Contents, June 20, No. 25 (1994) 3–8.
I. F. Aguillo, Increasing the between-year stability of the impact factor in the Science Citation Index.Scientometrics, 35 (1996) 279–282.
E. Garfield (Ed.),Science Citation Index, Journal Citation Reports. A Bibliometric Analysis of Science Journals in the ISI Database. Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, from 1975 annually; from 1995 also available on CD-ROM.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Balaban, A.T. How should citations to articles in high- and low-impact journals be evaluated, or what is a citation worth?. Scientometrics 37, 495–498 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02019260
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02019260