A Literature Review on Application Progress and Research Prospects of CiteSpace

Abstract

CiteSpace, a visual analysis tool, has experienced a flourishing development in the past 10 years and attracts many scholars in the domestic and foreign countries. Focusing on the worldwide spread of the application of CiteSpace, the finding is that CiteSpace can be used for visual analysis and research hot spots in various fields, but there is a slight deviation in the research direction between the domestic and foreign scholars. It also finds that CiteSpace mainly tends to macro analysis, whose data is based on the literatures, periodicals but ignores original books. In addition, CiteSpace is often used independently. Based on forecasting the direction of CiteSpace application in the future, it could be predicted that CiteSpace would incline to combine with various visual analysis tools horizontally, support each other and get accurate results finally. CiteSpace would also combine with some micro analysis tools vertically and analyze the detailed consequences deeply, integrally and meticulously.