The J-shaped distribution of citedness

A new approach for investigating the correlation between research quality and citation counts is presented and applied to a case study of the relationship between peer evaluations reflected in scholarly book reviews and the citation frequencies of reviewed books. Results of the study designate a J-shaped distribution between the considered variables, presumably caused by a skewed allocation of negative citations. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research. Introduction We know that scientists differ significantly in productivity and scientific influence. Lotka (1926) observed that the productivity distribution of scientists is extremely skewed, and formulated his well-known inverse square law, stating that the number of scientists producing n papers is roughly proportional to 1/n. Citedness has not been subject to the same inspection as scientific productivity, but available studies are nevertheless indicating that distributions of citations to scientific papers may be as skewed as productivity distributions (Seglen, 1992). Studies of the predictive validity of citation analysis have tested the hypothesis that works with high citation frequencies are valuated more positively than others with lower citation frequencies, and the aim of these previous examinations has consequently been to demonstrate the existence of a linear relationship between research quality and citation counts. But the majority of studies focussing on the quality of documents have only been able to report low to moderate findings of linear correlation, which leads Bornstein (1991) to the conclusion that: If a relationship between citation frequency and research quality does exists, this relationship is not likely to be linear. The relationship between research quality and citation frequency probably takes the form of a J-shaped curve, with exceedingly bad research cited more frequently than mediocre research (e.g. as an example of an idea or line of research that turned out to be a blind alley, or as an example of what not to do in a particular area). Cronin and Overfelt (1994) have actually demonstrated the existence of a J-shaped relationship between researchers’ salaries and the number of times The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm The author gratefully acknowledges the help and support of Professor Peter Ingwersen who supervised an earlier version of this paper. Also many thanks to all of the participants from the Nordic PhD-course in Bibliometrics 2001 for their productive comments on earlier drafts. Finally the author would like to thank three anonymous referees for their constructive critique and suggestions.