Distribution of ranks of articles and citations in journals

In the equation, C and a are constants (Lotka, 1926). However, the distribution of absolute values of scientometric variables in ranks has not received much attention by researchers. Mansilla, Köppen, Cocho, and Miramontes (2007) suggested an empirical law for the rank-order behavior of journal impact factors. They used data for the journal impact factors in some areas and found an extremely good fit that outperformed the previous rank-order model (Mansilla et al., 2007). On the basis of an improved version of the previous law, they proposed a two-exponent equation: