A mathematical theory of citing, Simkin, MV; Roychowdhury, VP, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 58 (11). SEP 2007. p.1661-1673

[Eugene Garfield]

E-mail Address: simkin at ee.ucla.edu

Author(s): Simkin, MV (Simkin, Mikhail V.); Roychowdhury, VP 
(Roychowdhury, Vwani P.) 

Title: A mathematical theory of citing 

Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND 
TECHNOLOGY, 58 (11): 1661-1673 SEP 2007 

Language: English 
Document Type: Article 

Keywords Plus: NETWORKS; EVOLUTION; MODEL; CRITICALITY; ALLELES; CHANCE

Cited Reference Count: 50 
Times Cited: 0 

Publisher: JOHN WILEY & SONS INC 
Publisher Address: 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030 USA 

ISSN: 1532-2882 

Subject Category: Computer Science, Information Systems; Information 
Science & Library Science 
 
Abstract: Recently we proposed a model in which when a scientist writes a 
manuscript, he picks up several random papers, cites them, and also copies 
a fraction of their references. The model was stimulated by our finding 
that a majority of scientific citations are copied from the lists of 
references used in other papers. It accounted quantitatively for several 
properties of empirically observed distribution of citations; however, 
important features such as power-law distributions of citations to papers 
published during the same year and the fact that the average rate of 
citing decreases with aging of a paper were not accounted for by that 
model. Here, we propose a modified model: When a scientist writes a 
manuscript, he picks up several random recent papers, cites them, and also 
copies some of their references. The difference with the original model is 
the word recent. We solve the model using methods of the theory of 
branching processes, and find that it can explain the aforementioned 
features of citation distribution, which our original model could not 
account for. The model also can explain "sleeping beauties in science;" 
that is, papers that are little cited for a decade or so and 
later "awaken" and get many citations. Although much can be understood 
from purely random models, we find that to obtain a good quantitative 
agreement with empirical citation data, one must introduce Darwinian 
fitness parameter for the papers. 

Addresses: Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Elect Engn, Los Angeles, CA 90095 
USA 

Reprint Address: Simkin, MV, Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Elect Engn, Los 
Angeles, CA 90095 USA. 

E-mail Address: simkin at ee.ucla.edu; vwani at ee.ucla.edu 

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