Laffan, SW. 2010. The Citation Relationships between Journals of Geography and Cognate Disciplines. GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH 48 (2): 166-180

[Eugene Garfield]

Laffan, SW. 2010. The Citation Relationships between Journals of Geography 
and Cognate Disciplines. GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH 48 (2): 166-180

Author Full Name(s): Laffan, Shawn W.

Language: English
Document Type: Article

Abstract: There is an ongoing debate concerning the relationship between the 
disciplinary ends of the broad spectrum that is geography and also the 
relationship between geography and other disciplines, including the extent to 
which it is self-focussed or inward looking. These issues were assessed using 
an analysis of citation relationships between journals in the Thompson Scientific 
Journal Citation Reports databases at the category level. Thirty-four categories 
were used, comparing the two geography categories ('Geography', representing 
human geography and 'Geography, Physical', representing physical geography) 
with 32 other cognate categories. A matrix of the citation relationships 
between each category was developed using a relatedness factor that corrects 
for the opportunity for citations to occur. The resultant matrix of factors 
indicates that human geography journals are considerably more likely to cite 
their own papers than are those of physical geography, but that they are by no 
means the most self-citing of the journals assessed. Both human and physical 
geography journals have strong citation relationships with several other 
disciplines, with those for human geography most often being net export 
relationships in the sense of a balance of trade. This finding contradicts 
previous assertions that human geography imports more than it exports. The 
citation relationships of physical geography are smaller than those of human 
geography, and are typically small net imports. The relationship between human 
and physical geography journals is a small net export from physical geography 
to human geography, but their total trade volume is considerably smaller than 
their respective relationships with other disciplines. These results are likely to 
be caused by many factors in addition to the actual relatedness between 
disciplines and sub-disciplines, but they do represent a benchmark against 
which more detailed analyses can be assessed.

Addresses: Univ New S Wales, Sch Biol Earth & Environm Sci, Sydney, NSW 
2052, Australia

Reprint Address: Laffan, SW, Univ New S Wales, Sch Biol Earth & Environm Sci, 
Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.

E-mail Address: Shawn.Laffan at unsw.edu.au

ISSN: 1745-5863
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-5871.2009.00617.x
URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123203598/abstract?
CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0