Critical citations in knowledge construction and citation analysis: from paradox to definition

Critical citations are lacking a common definition in relation to extant research on knowledge construction and citation analysis, whereas studies these topics seem provide fully relevant theoretical framework, making criticism an essential phenomenon for the progress of science. We propose explain this paradox by fact that seems have positive polarity default shift is result stronger commitment part author. This results use specific cue words. By studying labels (and their associated definitions) 53 other equated with concept critical citation, we identified 3 functions which base citation: "to criticize", compare" question" works. While consider criticize function as central probably more frequent, analysis corpus 51 text snippets containing (all retrieved from those same studies) reveals considered authors often comparisons between rather than blunt attacks against cited three-function based set wordings gathered study new basis design tools dedicated detection. Indeed, lexical grammatical markers characterizing comparison must be taken into account addition expressing negative evaluation doubt.