Citation Analysis: Definitions and Applications

• Main Author: Amirhossein Abdoulmajid
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Iranian Research Institute for Information and Technology 2007-04-01
• Series: Iranian Journal of Information Processing & Management
• Subjects: Citation Analysis; Bibliometrics; Library and Information Science
• Online Access: http://jipm.irandoc.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-60&slc_lang=en&sid=1

Citations hold a special place within scientific literature. In fact a scientific paper is deemed credible only when it cites the relevant works and papers on the subject. Citation analysis is a method based on the existing citations within scientific literature. It analyses and evaluates works by counting the number of citations used in different texts such as journals, dissertations and such. The emergence of citation indices has contributed to the remarkable growth and development of citation analysis, making it a significant research area over the past couple of decades. The present paper deals with the importance of citations and citation theories. Definitions and historical background on citation analysis as well as its various field applications are discussed.