Impact of the reference list features on the number of citations
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Impact of the reference list features on the number of citations Stefano Mammola1,2 · Diego Fontaneto1 · Alejandro Martínez1 · Filipe Chichorro2 Received: 30 July 2020 / Accepted: 9 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Many believe that the quality of a scientific publication is as good as the science it cites. However, quantifications of how features of reference lists affect citations remain sparse. We examined seven numerical characteristics of reference lists of 50,878 research articles published in 17 ecological journals between 1997 and 2017. Over this period, significant changes occurred in reference lists’ features. On average, more recent papers have longer reference lists and cite more high Impact Factor papers and fewer non-journal publications. We also show that highly cited articles across the ecological literature have longer reference lists, cite more recent and impactful references, and include more self-citations. Conversely, the proportion of ‘classic’ papers and non-journal publications cited, as well as the temporal span of the reference list, have no significant influence on articles’ citations. From this analysis, we distill a recipe for crafting impactful reference lists, at least in ecology. Keywords Bibliography · Bibliometrics · Citations · Classic paper · Impact factor · Reference list · Self-citations
Introduction As young scientists moving our first steps in the world of academic publishing, we were instructed by our mentors and supervisors on the articles to read and cite in our publications. “Avoid self-citations”; “Include as many papers published in Nature and Science as possible”; “Don’t forget the classics”; and “Be timely! Cite recent papers” are all examples of such advice found in textbooks and blogs about scientific writing. Although these recommendations seem reasonable, they remain subjective as long as the effect of reference list features on citation counts of papers remains unknown. The success of a scientific publication varies owing to a range of factors, often acting synergistically in driving its impact (Tahamtan et al. 2016). Apart from the scientific * Stefano Mammola [email protected]; [email protected] 1
Molecular Ecology Group (MEG), IRSA – Water Research Institute, National Research Council, Verbania, Pallanza, Italy
2
Laboratory for Integrative Biodiversity Research (LIBRe), Finnish Museum of Natural History (LUOMUS), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Scientometrics
content of the article itself, which ideally should be the only predictor of its impact, factors that correlate to the number of citations that an article accumulates over time include its accessibility (Gargouri et al. 2010; Lawrence 2001), the stylistic characteristics of its title (Bowman and Kinnan 2018; Fox and Burns 2015; Letchford et al. 2015; Murphy et al. 2019) and abstract (Freeling et al. 2019; Letchford et al. 2016; Martínez and Mammola 2020), the number of authors (Fox et al. 2016) and the diversity of their affiliations
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