Scientometric correlates of high-quality reference lists in ecological papers

Abstract

It is said that the quality of a scientific publication is as good as the science it cites, but the properties of high-quality reference lists have never been numerically quantified. We examined seven numerical characteristics of reference lists of 50,878 primary research articles published in 17 ecological journals between 1997 and 2017. Over this 20-years period, there have been significant changes in reference lists' properties. On average, more recent ecological papers have longer reference lists, cite more high Impact Factor papers, and fewer non-journal publications. Furthermore, we show that highly cited papers across the ecology literature have longer reference lists, cite more recent and impactful papers, and account for more self-citations. Conversely, the proportion of 'classic' papers and non-journal publications cited, as well as the temporal range of the reference list, have no significant influence on articles' citations. From this analysis, we distill a recipe for crafting impactful reference lists.

Specialized terminology limits the reach of new scientific knowledge

“…We also found a positive correlation between the use of jargon in the title and abstract, with only about one third of articles using jargon in the abstract also including jargon in the title (Figure 3). Figure S1) representing the predicted number of citations over time (Mammola et al 2020). Dots below the horizontal black line are articles under-cited for their age, and vice versa.…”