What Makes a Scientific Article Influential ? a Citation Analysis

In this paper we examine, by means of a citation analysis, which factors influence the impact of articles published in demography journals between 1990 and 1992. Several quantifiable characteristics of the articles (characteristics with respect to authors, visibility, content and journals) are strongly related to their subsequent impact in the social sciences. Articles are most frequently cited when they deal with empirical, ahistorical research focusing on populations in the developed world, when they are prominently placed in a journal issue, when they are written in English and when they appear in core demography journals. Furthermore, although eminent scholars are likely to be cited on the basis of their reputation, the effect of reputation appears to be small in demography. * Erasmus University Rotterdam, Tinbergen Institute and OCFEB, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands; and Scientific Council for Government Policy, P.O. Box 20004, NL2500 EA The Hague. At the time of writing this paper Van Dalen was associated with the NIDI. ** Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). Acknowledgments Comments by Aat Liefbroer, Frits Tazelaar, Evert van Imhoff and Frans van Poppel are gratefully acknowledged. Research was carried out with financial support from the Population Studies Program of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), grant # 18.071.