Paper Info
Title
Universality of citation distributions: toward an objective measure of scientific impact.
Abstract
We study the distributions of citations received by a single publication within several disciplines, spanning broad areas of science. We show that the probability that an article is cited c times has large variations between different disciplines, but all distributions are rescaled on a universal curve when the relative indicator c(f) = c/c(0) is considered, where c(0) is the average number of citations per article for the discipline. In addition we show that the same universal behavior occurs when citation distributions of articles published in the same field, but in different years, are compared. These findings provide a strong validation of cf as an unbiased indicator for citation performance across disciplines and years. Based on this indicator, we introduce a generalization of the h index suitable for comparing scientists working in different fields.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1073/pnas.0806977105
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Keywords
Field
DocType
bibliometrics,analysis,h index
Probability and statistics,Computer science,Citation,Bibliometrics,Universality (philosophy),Statistics,Selection bias
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
105
45.0
0027-8424
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
234
10.32
16
Authors
3
Search Limit
100234
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Filippo Radicchi192047.77
Santo Fortunato24209212.38
Claudio Castellano339220.46