Reward or persuasion? The battle to define the meaning of a citation

[David E. Wojick]

I study the logic of citation in the context of the logic of science, 
with a relatively simple model. Mind you this says nothing about the 
psychology or sociology of citation.

The standard logical structure of a research paper is this:
1. What is the problem?
2. What did we do?
3. What did we find?
4. What does it mean?

Section 2 is normally the longest, while section 4 may be absent. 
However, most citations occur in section 1, where they are used to 
supplement the description of the problem, including its history. The 
precise role of contemporary (as opposed to historical) citations 
depends on how the problem is described, which may depend on the 
nature of the problem. For example, if there have been prior failed 
attempts. But mostly the citations back up the factual specification 
of the problem and the work leading up to the present work.

The logic is explanatory, not persuasive, so Davis's category of 
"persuasion" is misleading and probably incorrect. The contrast 
between scientific papers, and persuasive content such as political 
speeches, is logically stark. The citations typically are 
straightforward references to additional information. The goal 
appears to be that of clarity of exposition, not persuasion, and 
indeed there is generally nothing to be persuaded of.

Likewise, the choice of citations seems to be those best suited to 
explain the problem and approach taken. I have never seen any 
evidence that citations were chosen in order to reward the authors 
being cited, although it may well happen on occasion. Generally 
speaking citations are part of the evidence that one understands the 
problem so it would be hard to skew them. Thus Davis's term "reward" 
is also misleading and probably incorrect.

There is then the very different issue of how scientific communities 
view and use citations. They are of course widely used just as they 
appear, that is as references. They are also sometimes used to judge 
the importance of a given work, journal, etc., in the sense of the 
number of people who seem to be affected. This is not a reward, it is 
a measure, although it is certainly true that people benefit from 
measuring high. There is also a persuasive aspect to this in that 
people are likely to be persuaded that work is important if others 
find it so. The unfortunate bandwagon effect is part of this 
phenomenon, but I digress.

So my view is that the terms reward and persuasion are incorrect when 
applied to the general theory of citations. Citations do not exist 
for either reason, rather they exist of the purpose of communication. 
Perhaps reward and persuasion are metaphorical, but then I have no 
use for schools of sociology that view metaphors as explanations.

David Wojick

>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
>http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
>
>It's also worth pointing out that Jeppe Nicolaisen's recent ARIST 
>review does discuss various calls for a theory of citation.  It also 
>discusses psychological, normative, social constructivist, 
>persuasionŠ. And other versions of why people cite things.
>
>I highly recommend it.
>
>Nicolaisen, J. (2007). Citation analysis. In B. Cronin (Ed.), Annual 
>review of information science and technology (pp. 609-641). Medford, 
>N.J.: Information Today. DOI: 10.1002/aris.2007.1440410120
>
>ASIS&T members and subscribers to their digital library can read it online.
>
>Christina
>
>________________________________________
>From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics 
>[mailto:SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU] On Behalf Of Phil Davis
>Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:35 PM
>To: SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU
>Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] Reward or persuasion? The battle to define 
>the meaning of a citation
>
> 
>
>In reading the literature, I found two very distinct camps: one 
>arguing from the Mertonian view that citations reflect a type of 
>reward in the form of public recognition, and the other suggesting 
>that citations were no more than rhetorical devices for bolstering 
>one's argument.  The reward camp is well known by people on this 
>list. The persuasion literature is found more in the Science and 
>Technology Studies journals, and for the most-part, is ignored by 
>the reward camp.  There are some who try to reconcile both 
>arguments, and I try to do this in the article (see attached).
>
>I've received some personal correspondence that I've completely 
>misunderstood Eugene Garfield and his intentions for creating an 
>index based on the citation literature.  In his writings, I saw a 
>compelling argument from the perspective of the historian of 
>science.  I was working entirely from the literature, and did not 
>conduct any interviews with Dr. Garfield.  If I have misunderstood 
>his rationale(s) for the citation index, the confusion is entirely 
>mine.
>
>--Phil Davis
>--
>Philip M. Davis
>PhD Student
>Department of Communication
>301 Kennedy Hall
>Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
>email: pmd8 at cornell.edu
>phone: 607 255-2124
>https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/~pmd8/resume
>Jean-Claude Guédon
>Université de Montréal

-- 

"David E. Wojick, Ph.D., PE" <WojickD at osti.gov>
Senior Consultant for Innovation
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
US Department of Energy
http://www.osti.gov/innovation/
391 Flickertail Lane, Star Tannery, VA 22654 USA
540-858-3136

http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/resume.html provides my bio and 
past client list.
http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/Mathematics_Philosophy_Science/ 
presents some of my own research on information structure and 
dynamics.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.asis.org/pipermail/sigmetrics/attachments/20090211/3336dd58/attachment.html>