Abstract

We study citation dynamics of the papers published in three scientific disciplines (Physics, Economics, and Mathematics) and four broad scientific categories (Medical, Natural, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities). We measure the uncitedness ratio, namely, the fraction of uncited papers in these datasets and its dependence on the time following publication. These measurements are compared with the model of citation dynamics which considers acquiring citations as an inhomogeneous Poisson process. The model captures the fraction of uncited papers in our collections fairly well, suggesting that uncitedness is an inevitable consequence of the Poisson statistics.

Peer Review

https://publons.com/publon/10.1162/qss_a_00142

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