The Wisdom of Citing Scientists

This Brief Communication discusses the benefits of citation analysis in research evaluation based on Galton's "Wisdom of Crowds" (1907). Citations are based on the assessment of many which is why they can be ascribed a certain amount of accuracy. However, we show that citations are incomplete assessments and that one cannot assume that a high number of citations correlate with a high level of usefulness. Only when one knows that a rarely cited paper has been widely read is it possible to say – strictly speaking – that it was obviously of little use for further research. Using a comparison with 'like' data, we try to determine that cited reference analysis allows a more meaningful analysis of bibliometric data than times-cited analysis.