High‐Citation Papers in Space Physics: Examination of Gender, Country, and Paper Characteristics

Abstract

The number of citations to a refereed journal article from other refereed journal articles is a measure of its impact. Papers, individuals, journals, departments, and institutions are increasingly judged by the impact they have in their disciplines, and citation counts are now a relatively easy (though not necessarily accurate or straightforward) way of attempting to quantify impact. This study examines papers published in the Journal of Geophysical Research—Space Physics in the year 2012 (n = 705) and analyzes the characteristics of high‐citation papers compared to low‐citation papers. We find that high‐citation papers generally have a large number of authors (>5) and cite significantly more articles in the reference section than low‐citation papers. We also examined the gender and country of institution of the first author and found that there is not a statistically significant gender bias, but there are some significant differences in citation statistics between articles based on the country of first‐author institution.

Impact of Special Collections in JGR Space Physics

“…non-SC and SC papers, consistent with what was found by Moldwin and Liemohn (2018). However, the increase with author team size is not large nor is it monotonic.…”

“…A finding from Figure 3 is that the parameters found by Moldwin and Liemohn (2018) are confirmed in this larger database of papers but that none of the parameters examined here can explain the larger average citation and download values of SC papers. Specifically, the trends in both author team size and references in the bibliography are the same for both SC papers and non-SC papers.…”

“…For the SC papers, there are 234 with a colon and 775 without, while of the non-SC papers, 1,715 include a colon and 6,157 do not. We observe the result of Moldwin and Liemohn (2018) in average citations of non-SC papers and "all papers," with papers with a colon in the title having a higher citation rate that is statistically significant. The opposite is true for SC papers, however, with the citation rate slightly lower, although still statistically significant.…”

“…To more thoroughly investigate if it is SC inclusion that increases citations and downloads or whether it is some other factor, the published papers were categorized according to four other parameters. The first three are the main organizers from Moldwin and Liemohn (2018): the use of a colon in the title, the number of authors on the paper, and the number of references in the bibliography. The fourth attribute is paper type.…”

“…Of course, these are not the only contributing factors to citation and download rates, though. Moldwin and Liemohn (2018) conducted an assessment of citations to papers published in 2012 in JGR-SP, finding several parameters that lead to a statistically significant increase in citations. One of these is the use of a colon in the title, another is the number of authors, and a third is the number of references.…”