McCain KW, Salvucci LJ "How influential is Brooks' law? A longitudinal citation context analysis of Frederick Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month " Journal of Information Science 32 (3): 277-295 2006

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Addresses: Kate.McCain at cis.drexel.edu, Kate.McCain at cis.drexel.edu 


Title: How influential is Brooks' law? A longitudinal citation context 
analysis of Frederick Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month 

Author(s): McCain KW, Salvucci LJ 

Source: JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SCIENCE 32 (3): 277-295 2006 

Document Type: Article 
Language: English 
Cited References: 56      Times Cited: 0      

Abstract: 
Citation context analysis is used to demonstrate the diversity of concept 
symbols that a book-length publication can represent and the diffusion of 
influence of these concepts over time and across scholarly disciplines. A 
content analysis of 574 citation contexts from 497 journal articles citing 
an edition of Frederick P. Brooks, Jr's The Mythical Man-Month (MMM) over 
the period 1975-1999 showed that MMM represents a variety of different 
concepts and is cited in a wide range of subject areas. Over time, a high 
level of interest in MMM spread from software engineering and computer 
science to management and information systems, with different areas 
showing different patterns of focus on concepts within the work. 'Brooks' 
Law' (the 'mythical man-month' or 'adding more people to a late project 
makes it later'), accounted for less than 30% of the classified citation 
contexts. The findings contribute to our understanding of the diffusion of 
ideas in scholarly communication, and the diversity that can underlie the 
creation of a reference in a scholarly publication. 

Author Keywords: software engineering; citation analysis; citation context 
analysis; longitudinal citation analysis; scholarly communication; 
diffusion of ideas; concept symbols 
KeyWords Plus: BIG SCIENCE; PART II; SOCIOLOGY; ECONOMICS; CONSTRUCTION; 
KNOWLEDGE; PATTERNS; ARTICLE; QUALITY; SYSTEMS 

Addresses: McCain KW (reprint author), Drexel Univ, Coll Informat Sci & 
Technol, 3141 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
Drexel Univ, Coll Informat Sci & Technol, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
Villanova Univ, Dept Hist, Villanova, PA USA 

E-mail Addresses: Kate.McCain at cis.drexel.edu, Kate.McCain at cis.drexel.edu 

Publisher: SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 1 OLIVERS YARD, 55 CITY ROAD, LONDON 
EC1Y 1SP, ENGLAND 
Subject Category: COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS; INFORMATION 
SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE 
IDS Number: 062ML 
ISSN: 0165-5515 


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