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Dissertation Information for Elizabeth Aversa

NAME:
- Elizabeth Aversa
- (Alias) Elizabeth Smith Aversa

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- Drexel University (USA) (1984)

ADVISORS:
- Belver Griffith

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- M. Carl Drott
- Henry Gilbert Small
- Frank Carmone
- Jacqueline Mancall

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: CITATION PATTERNS OF 400 SCIENTIFIC PAPERS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO LITERATURE AGING

Abstract: Citation patterns of very highly cited scientific papers are identified and their relationship to literature aging (obsolescence) is investigated. Citation histories of 400 papers published in 1972 are collected and utilized to determine the number and characteristics of distinct citation patterns. Further, aging rates of papers exhibiting different citation patterns, and the relationship of non-citation variables to citation pattern groups are examined.

Standardized citation counts for 1972 through 1980 are used as variables in a series of K-means cluster analyses to determine the number of citation patterns for papers cited more than 30 times within the nine-year period. Discriminant analysis provides additional data descriptive of the classification into the groups and the roles of combinations of variables on the classification.

Two citation patterns are identified representing 42 and 58 percent of the papers. The smaller group increases in citedness very early, reaching the peak of citedness in the third year following publication. Citedness declines rapidly and steeply for this group. The second group exhibits a delayed rise in citedness, reaching a peak in the sixth year following publication, and thereafter declines in citedness less rapidly than the first group, but more rapidly than the literature as a whole. Within the sample, the larger, more highly cited group ages more slowly than the smaller, less highly cited group.

In a subset of the papers, it is found that non-citation variables related to author communicativeness (number of collaborative authors and author prior citedness) are related to citation patterns. Other non-citation variables appear largely to be unrelated.

The clustering methodology is shown to be useful in studying literature aging, and the investigation of citation patterns is demonstrated to be of value as a complementary approach to aging.

MPACT Scores for Elizabeth Aversa

A = 2
C = 7
A+C = 9
T = 2
G = 1
W = 2
TD = 2
TA = 0
calculated 2014-07-02 17:01:50

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