A considerable literature exists on the empirical validity of Lotka's law; however, these studies are mainly incomparable and inconclusive, owing to substantial differences in the analytical methods applied. The main elements involved in fitting a bibliometric model to empirical data are: specification of the model, measurement of the variables, organization of the data, parameter estimation, and assessing goodness-of-fit. Each of these modeling variables is examined, a consistent methodology for applying Lotka's law is proposed, and the results of an empirical test are described. These results support the empirical validity and generality of Lotka's law as well as the suitability of the proposed methodology.

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