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

Thu Dec 6 15:20:15 EST 2007

Christina,

Blind copying of references by authors is not a valid assumption. 

Given that the basic assumption used in the model is wrong, it can't be
used to explain propagation of errors - or anything else that follows
from it. 

It's like the Ptolemaic model of the solar system.  It explains the
position of the Sun and Moon and planets in the sky pretty well. But its
basic assumption is that the Earth is at the center of the solar system.
An invalid assumption makes the model meaningless, even if it correctly
predicts empirical results. 

Steve Morris.

-----Original Message-----
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Pikas, Christina K.
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:41 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] 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

Actually, that was in a paper a couple of years ago posted to ArXiv --
it was the only way to explain the propagation of obvious critical
errors; that is, errors that:
- would prevent the easy retrieval of the article (switched page
numbers)
- were fairly uncommon or would be fairly unlikely to happen repeatedly
by chance alone

Ah, but you're being tongue in cheek?

Christina K. Pikas

-----Original Message-----
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Morris, Steven (BA)
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 12:08 PM
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] 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

Of all the airy-fairy network growth models that physicists have
inflicted upon us, in my opinion this 'reference copying' model takes
the cake. 

Does anyone out there really believe that researchers blindly copy
references into their papers? 

Steve Morris
Houston

-----Original Message-----
From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
[mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Eugene Garfield
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 10:07 AM
To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
Subject: [SIGMETRICS] 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

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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