Contributing factors to long-term citation count in marine and freshwater biology articles

Abstract

Researchers have investigated factors thought to affect the total number of citations in various academic disciplines, and some general trends have emerged. However, there are still limited data for many fields, including aquatic sciences. Using papers published in 2003–2005 (n = 785), we investigated marine and freshwater biology articles to identify factors that may contribute to the probability of citation and for cumulative citation counts over 10 years. We found no relationships with probability of citation; however, we found evidence that for those that were cited at least once, cumulative citations were related to several factors. Articles cited by books received more citations than those never cited by books, which we hypothesized to be indicative of the impact an article may have in the field. We also found that articles first cited within 2 years of publication received more cumulative citations than those first cited after 2 years. We found no evidence that self-citation (as the first citation) had a significant effect on total citations. Our findings were compared with previous studies in other disciplines, and it was found that aquatic science citation patterns are comparable to fields in science and technology but less so to humanities and social sciences.