Tracking Changes in Political Science Dissertations at Penn State: 1953–2010

A comparative citation analysis study of master’s theses at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon

“…As shown in Table IV, almost 40 per cent of the political science citations recorded in this AUB study are to monographs, 17 per cent to journals, and around 14 per cent to newspapers and bulletins. These results underscore those in studies conducted by Herubel (1993, 1994); Knapp (2013); Zhang (2007); however, they diverge from Kohn and Gordon's (2014) findings stating that undergraduate students in international relations tend to rely more on journals than books. Also, it is important to note that citations to websites represent a significantly higher proportion of reference sources in theses presented in political science (12.71 per cent) compared to those in biology (0.36 per cent) and mechanical engineering (3.62 per cent).…”

“…In their research on citations in political science dissertations, Herubel (1993, 1994) found that students to a greater extent rely on monographs than on other types of sources for their citations. Zhang (2007) also shows that scholars in international relations tend to cite books more frequently than journals and so does Knapp (2013), who based his research on 40 doctoral dissertations in political science at Penn State University. He noticed that Penn State students nowadays also tend to rely more on books rather than journals.…”

“…Other research compares literature citations listed in faculty publications with those in papers written by undergraduate or graduate students (Kraus, 2005;Pancheshnikov, 2007). Numerous studies examine a particular discipline, for example, biology (Brown, 2005;Miller, 2011;Nabe and Imre, 2008;Walcott, 1994), engineering, (Becker and Chiware, 2015;Bierman, 2012;Eckel, 2009;Edwards, 1999;Kriz, 1977;Williams and Fletcher, 2006;Yu et al, 2006) and political science (Buchanan and Herubel, 1994;Knapp, 2013), while some papers contain comparative data from various disciplines (Feyereisen and Spoiden, 2009;Fransen, 2012;Kayongo and Helm, 2011;Leiding, 2005;Wilson and Tenopir, 2008). This AUB study, like other comparative research papers, offers an overview of journal and monograph use across different disciplines.…”

A ten year analysis of dissertation bibliographies from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Rutgers University

“…Others (Rossmann, 2013;Ardanuy, 2013) have brought up the opportunity such analyses give the librarian to liaise with the faculty teaching in the PhD programs through sharing the findings. Dissertation bibliography analyses over lengthy time periods can also provide important information on the degree to which "disciplinary drift" is affecting a particular field (Knapp, 2013).…”

Dissertations in CACREP-Accredited Counseling Doctoral Programs: An Initial Investigation

“…Several other researchers have noted the growing number of interdisciplinary dissertation topics either within specific fields (e.g., political science; Knapp, 2013;nonprofit studies;Shier & Handy, 2014) or across disciplines at a university (Herther, 2010). Perhaps most relevant to this study is the ongoing documentation of doctoral dissertation research in rehabilitation counseling from 1979 (Lofaro, 1981) through 2011 (Zanskas et al, 2014).…”