Citation Indexing

Citation Indexing
-An author usually mentions along with his work all those documents which he has consulted
or referred to. This is called citing or referencing.

-Citations are the references made to other documents in the text of a work. A document to
which a reference is made is called a cited document, while a document which makes
reference to the cited document is called citing document.

-A citation covers the essential bibliographical details of the cited document and those of the
host document when the cited document forms a part of it. These information are arranged in
some standard pattern.
Citation Indexing
- Evidently, when a document refers to some other documents, it can be assumed that there is
some similarity or association of ideas between the citing document and the cited document.
There can be hardly identical treatment of subject matter in both the documents; only some
ideas or lines of the cited document may have been quoted by the author of the citing
document either to explain or support his own contention or to discount those ideas by
comparing them with his own findings. Thus the relationship existing between the cited
document and the citing documents may be of varying degrees.

-In general, a citation implies a relationship between a part or the whole of a cited paper and a
part or a whole of the citing paper. This relationship forms the basis of citation indexing.
 Underlying Principles
The concept of citation indexing relies on three principles:

1. All knowledge from whatever discipline is always dependent on or

2. Second, the core literature on a given subject is contained in a

3. Third, the product of research is knowledge, which is recorded and published, and a
possible measure of its significance is the frequency of citation in subsequent
research.

Incidentally, when a document cites all or few of the same documents cited by another
document, it may also be assumed that the two citing document are also related. Kessler
has termed it as bibliographical coupling and suggested a method of measuring the
coupling strength.
Genesis of Citation Index
•Though the earliest known citation index was biblical citations in rabbinic literature, the Mafteah ha-Derashot,
attributed to Maimonides and probably dating to the 12 th century, the first true citation index dates to the 1860 by
Wait’s Table of Cases…New York… But most important and best-known citation index came with the 1873
publication of Shephard’s Citations, which was an index to American legal cases linking the recent cases with the
earliest cases of the same nature.

•Appreciating the usefulness of the system, Eugene Garfield stressed the need of adopting it in the field of science
and technology in 1950s and the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia, the institution of Garfield,
started bringing out the Science Citation Index (SCI) on regular basis.

•Social Science Citation Index and Arts and Humanities Citation Index were also started later.

•The first automated citation indexing was done by CiteSeer in 1997.

•Other sources for citation data include Google Scholar and Elsevier’s Scopus.
Definition of Citation Index
•A citation index is an ordered list of cited articles, each of which is accompanied by a list of citing articles. The
citing article is identified as a source, while the cited article as a reference.

•It is a structured list of all citations in a given collection of documents. Such lists are usually so arranged that the
cited document is followed by the citing documents.

•A listing which collects in one place the bibliographical descendents of a given cited author (Becker and
Hayes).

•Citation indexing is the technique of bringing together the documents which manifest association of ideas
through mechanical sorting of citations.

•It is a process of finding out the relationship between documents through citations.
Characteristics of Citation Index

• It is an index of sets of documents, each set consisting of a cited document and its citing
documents.

•It uses the citing document as a source and the cited document as a reference.

•It is arranged by cited documents and not under subject headings.

•Other indexes are based on either subject analysis or significant words taken from the titles or texts,
while a citation index is based only on citations.

•Entries in other indexes are usually arranged alphabetically by their headings, while entries in a
citation index are arranged alphabetically by cited authors.

•In other indexes either the full bibliographical details of a document indexed or a code number
representing it are mentioned as a reference or as an aid for retrieval, while the details of cited
documents are mentioned as reference in a citation index.

•In other indexes the documents representing the same subject area or same terms are collated and
brought together, while in a citation index the documents having association of ideas are collated.
 Indexing Process

•Deciding on the coverage: At the outset a decision has to be taken about the subject and the period
to be covered and the specific documents, the citations of which are to be indexed. Although
periodicals are usually taken up for CI, other primary documents like conference proceedings,
patents, standards, research papers, and even books may be covered, if required.

•Scanning of source documents: The selected source documents may now be scanned, relevant
articles or sections identified and their citations checked. If any citation is found incomplete or
doubtful, the cited document may be consulted and the citation concerned may be completed o
rectified.
 Indexing Process

•Sorting of documents: All the entries prepared are sorted out by cited documents or their code
numbers. This yields a bunch of entries for each cited document.

•Consolidation of entries: Each bunch of entries are then consolidated so that the details of the
citing documents are arranged in some order, usually in alphabetical order by their author’s names,
and placed along with the details of the cited document, which is common to the bunch.

•Arrangement: The consolidated entry, each consisting of the details of a cited document and those
of its citing documents, are now arranged in some convenient order, usually again alphabetically by
the names of the cited authors.
 Indexing Process

•Preparation of index: For the convenience of the users, some indexers like index of the citing or
source documents, index of the topics covered by the documents, the citations of which have been
indexed, etc. may be complied.

•Press-copy making: If the citation index is to be printed, the press copy should be prepared by
word processing or typing and affixing necessary instructions to the press.
Advantages of Citation Index

•The citation index has the unique chronological ability to facilitate prospective as well as
retrospective searches. As in traditional indexes, you can lock backward to locate earlier papers.
And you can go forward to determine who has cited an earlier work. By starting with a single paper
or book, you can identify additional papers that have referred to it. And each retrieved paper, in turn,
may provide a new list of references with which to continue the citation search. Thus, one may
circle backwards and forwards through several generations of related records (Garfield).

•The citation index has several direct and indirect advantages as mentioned below, most of which
are not possessed by indexes prepared by other indexing techniques.
 Direct Advantages

•A citation index helps in identifying relevant papers independent of language, title, author, or
keywords.

•Unlike other indexes, a citation index is able to link up all recent papers on a subject with papers
published earlier but with which the recent ones have association or ideas. This males search of
relevant materials easy.

•In indexes with subject arrangement, only those documents which belong to the same subject area
are brought together, but in a citation index, documents which may not belong to exactly same
subject area but are partially related are also brought together and, therefore, its coverage can be
said to be multidisciplinary.
 Direct Advantages

•In these types of indexes documents belonging to collateral or partially related subject areas are
inked up by see also references, but it is not required in a citation index as such documents are
automatically collected together.

•While all those indexes using subject headings or terms for indexing and arrangement have
problems relating to terminology, a citation index does not have any such problem at all.

•The information retrieved through a citation index have a very high degree of relevancy, especially
f the citations are carefully selected and checked before inclusion in the index.
 Direct Advantages

•The searching of relevant materials can be done more easily and speedily in a citation index than in
many conventional indexes.

•It is self-upgrading index, as each new citation of an old paper are automatically listed making the
list of citing documents up-to-date.

•As preparation of citation indexes needs no intellectual activity, it is amenable to mechanization.

•By analyzing the citation indexes, it is possible to find out the periodicals in which maximum
number of original articles and articles of high standard are published (i.e., core periodicals).This
helps in taking a decision about the periodicals to be procured in the library.

•The impact factor of journals can be measured with the help of citation index.

•An article can inspire other authors for a limited period of time, after which it becomes obsolete.
Similarly, a volume of periodicals loses its importance when its authors are no longer cited. These
can be found out by analyzing citation indexes.
 Indirect Advantages

•How far a subject is related to or dependent upon other subjects may also be studies from citation
indexes.

•The genesis of an inter-disciplinary or newly emerging subject can be found out with the help of
citation indexes.

•The relative use of different types of documents like periodicals, books, standards patents, thesis,
etc. can be found by looking into the extent of their citation.
 Indirect Advantages

•With the help of citation indexes an author of a cited document can know how far his ideas or
research results have been appreciated, applied or criticized. This enables him to work further on his
subject in proper line.

•It is also possible to know through citation indexes who are the main workers in particular subject
field.
Criticism of Citation Indexes

•It does not provide any logical or conventional subject arrangement to which the users are
accustomed.

•At least one reference must be known to a user for starting the search in a citation index.

•Since the nature of relationship between the cited document and the citing documents is not clearly
indicated, there is a possibility of retrieving documents not pertinent from the point of view of a
particular user.
Criticism of Citation Indexes

•While writing papers, some authors may miss some highly relevant documents, especially those in
alien languages, and may not cite them. They are thus excluded from a citation index making it
incomplete and incomprehensive.

•A citation index retrieves only related documents and not the contents of documents.

•Some critics also point out that a citation index, specifically SCI, not capable of meeting the
exhaustive approach. But it must be kept in mind that a citation index is basically not meant to be
used as an exhaustive subject index, it only shows the path into the literature of the subject.
Usefulness of Citation Index

•It is able to identify a specific work unambiguously and thereby the subject concepts discussed in it
are also indentified.

•If one considers the book as the macro unit of thought and the periodical as micro unit of thought,
then the citation index in some respect deals in the sub-micro or molecular unit of thought. Thought
indexes can be extremely useful if they are properly conceived and developed (Eugene Garfield).
SCIENCE CITATION INDEX (SCI)

•SCI is the brain-child of Dr. Eugene Garfield, founder-director of the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI),
Philadelphia, the publisher of index and is perhaps the best example of its kind.

•The first SCI in five volumes, brought out in 1963, covered the scientific literature published in 613 journals
during the year 1961 and contained 1.4 million citations.

•SCI is now currently maintained by Clarivate Analytics (previously the Intellectual Property and Science
business of Thomson Reuters and is a component of Web of Science (previously known as Web of Knowledge),
which is an online subscription-based scientific citations indexing services that gives access to multiple database,
viz., Science Citation Index Expanded, Conference Proceeding Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index,
Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Index Chemicus, Current Chemical reactions, and Book Citation Index.

•Incidentally, Thomson Reuters also markets several subsets of this database, termed Specialty Citation Indexes,
such as the Neuroscience Citation Index and the Chemistry Citation Index.
 Coverage of SCI

•The SCI is based on citations made in the current literature in the field of science and technology.
•It started with the analysis of 700 periodicals.
•At present no significant periodical in science and technology is left out of its purview.
•SCI is now available in two versions:
•Science Citation Index – covers lesser number of journals and is available in CD/DVD format
•Science Citation Index Expanded – covers more than 860 major journals across 150 disciplines and is
available online
-All individual items in the selected periodicals with their citations are considered for inclusion in the
index.
-The SCI not only includes articles but also short communications, letters, abstracts, reviews, corrections,
and errata, discussions, conference literature, editorials, tributes, obituaries, etc.
-Only advertisements, news notices and the items without citations are excluded.
-The book reviews, which were being covered earlier, are also now excluded.
-The journals covered in SCI are known as source journals and the items they contain as source items.
 Parts of SCI:
•Citation index: A citation index entry consists of two types of information:

•Information about a cited item (reference)- includes author’s name (only first author’s name when there are
more than one author), year of publication, the title of the host document and its volume number, and the
starting page of the item. The cited items are arranged alphabetically by the names of the first named
authors. If there are more than one cited item of an author, they are arranged chronologically by their years
of publication.

•Information about citing articles – includes author’s name, the title of the host document, its year of
publication, volume number, and the starting page of the citing item. The citing items are also arranged in
the same manner that of the cited items immediately under each cited item.

•The citation index part has also two other sections on anonymous cited documents and cited patterns. The
former is arranged alphabetically by titles and the latter, known as Patent Citation Index, numerically by
patent numbers.
 Parts of SCI:
•Source index: The source index is an author index of the citing items. Each entry in this index
covers the following information:
•The name of the first author
•The names of co-authors (up to 10)
•The title of the host document
•Its volume number, issue number, starting page, year
•Code for the type of document (review, letter, correction, etc.)
•Number of references in the bibliography of the citing item
•Accession number of the source periodical in ISI
•Full title of the article
•These entries are also arranged alphabetically by the names of the first named authors. This part also has two
other sections on anonymous items and the organizations where the researchers reported in the source items have
been carried out. Anonymous items are arranged alphabetically by their titles and are given in the beginning of
the source index. In the other section, called Corporate Index, all the citing items are arranged alphabetically by
the authors under each organization. This part, being complete in itself, can also be used independently.
 Parts of SCI:
•Permuterm subject index: Keeping in view the difficulties of those users who are more
accustomed to subject index, in consulting SCI, a permuterm subject index was appended to it as a
separate part on 1967. For preparing this index all the significant terms of the titles of the citing
items are first selected. These terms are then permuted so that each of these terms serves as a
primary term. All other terms, which are related to a primary term (i.e., co-terms), are listed
alphabetically under the primary term as in the relative index of Dewey Decimal Classification. An
author using the primary term as also one of the co-terms is mentioned against the co-term
concerned, e.g.,

LIBRARY
CLASSIFICATION ISAAC, F W
CATALOGUING ORNER, J L

•The names of the authors provide reference and help in finding out the details from the
source index.