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Citation Analyses

One of the most difficult and often controversial questions facing academic faculty is how to determine whether or not publications make a contribution to the discipline or the rest of society. The perceived value of published research often determines the fate of academicians when applying for tenure or promotion. This entry describes how and why assessments are made concerning the perceived value of a published paper, of a scholar’s career, and of an institution’s communication studies department. That is followed by an examination of two primary indexes that provide citation information as well as power rankings for academic journals. The entry concludes with some limitations to citation counting.

Assessing the Value of a Publication, Scholar, and Department

The assessment of the value of publications requires some method of establishing the value of the work. Citations provide some mechanism to objectively evaluate the contribution of the work to the discipline. The argument for citation is that the heuristic value as well as the value to the work of others becomes founded in the references. References reflect the use of the material by other scholars to the discipline. The inclusion of material in a publication represents some finding, some methodological principle, or theoretical argument found useful to the current set of research. An article that provides a great deal of value as found in a large number of other researches indicates a significant contribution to the ongoing scholarship in the discipline.

The question of the value of a scholar becomes to some extent the degree to which the work of the scholar has been found useful by the discipline. Examining the citations across the career of a scholar provides one measure of the value of the work of that scholar, because it is a measure of how useful others found the contribution of the content in formulation of additional work.

The assessment of a department simply functions as generating a sum across all the scholars teaching in that department. For many doctoral programs, the reputation of the faculty and the contribution to scholarship remains difficult to assess and identify. Reputational studies often measure the contribution of the department as measured by the perception by members of the discipline without regard to the actual contributions of the members of the program.

Different Indexes to Compare

Two primary indexes provide citation information: Web of Knowledge and Google Scholar. There are many comparisons between the two citation systems, the most obvious is that Google Scholar includes far more journals and other sources of information than Web of Knowledge. Many persons argue about which system is more accurate, inclusive, and should be referenced when making claims about the state of contributions of scholars.

One of the disadvantages of using the Web of Knowledge involves the fact that many journals in the discipline of communication are not included in the index. Also, the Web of Knowledge often does not include journals whose publication record is not current. For example, for many years the journal Communication Studies lagged at least a year behind the stated publication date (the issue dated 2000 was actually published in 2002). A journal that is not considered current is dropped or not included in the analysis of Web of Knowledge. Thus, as a measure of citations in communication, Web of Knowledge provides a lower number of journals in its results and a less complete picture of the discipline.

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