CITATION – LINKAGES BETWEEN RESEARCH AND

LITERATURE
Prem Singh

Concepts of citation and citation indexing

It is difficult to determine the origin of citation practice, but this
practice appears to have entrenched in scientific writing along with the
emergence of periodical as a carrier of scientific information way back in
18th century. A citation is a reference by the author’s name to the previously
recorded information. It identifies much of the earlier work that is pertinent
to the subject of the author’s present work. This simple concept formed the
basis of citation indexing, which is a relatively new technique of organizing
the contents of a collection of document.
Citation indexing technique has enhanced the importance of citations.
It is a method of establishing relationship between the document through
citation. If a recent paper cites a previous paper, it is assumed that there is
some association of ideas between the cited and citing papers. This
association is converted in the form of an index keeping the direction from
the citation to the citing document.
The first application of this concept was made by Shepard in the
discipline of Law in 1873. He prepared an index, namely, Shepard’s
Citation Index, of all the decisions of higher courts of United States in such
a manner that lawyer could find out the previous decisions regarding
similar cases so that he could prove his point. As the doctrine of ‘Stare
Decisis’, which means a lawyer must base his argument on previous
decisions regarding similar point of law’, provided rationale for ‘Shepard’s
Citation Index’, so did the ‘citation practice’ provide the logic for citation
indexes for science and technology. Taking cue from Shepard’s Index,
Eugene Garfield conducted experiments in the application of this technique
in the field of science and technology, and brought out experimental
‘Science Citation Index’ in 1961.
Surrogates of citation
Footnotes, reference and citation are used synonymously. It is very
difficult to make a distinction between them. However, the explanation
given hereunder shall help to understand the three terms.
A ‘footnote’ is a comment given at the foot of the page. It
supplements the text and contains a reference, an authority or an
explanation of some matter in the text. A common mark is assigned to the
footnote and the text, which serves as a link between them. A reference, in
the legal sense, is an act of submitting a matter to some person or authority
 Communication Skills and Technical Writing

for consideration, decision or settlement. A citation performs the same

function. Appendage of citation to a paper tantamount to advice to the
reader of the paper that he may go to the cited document where he would
find material to support author’s conclusion.
Uses of citations
Scientific tradition necessitates that a reputed scientist should refer
to earlier papers which relate to his problem, when he publishes his own
paper. These references are supposed to identify those earlier researchers
whose concepts, techniques, apparatus, data, etc. were used by the author in
bringing out his own paper. The uses of citations can be grouped into two
categories – primary uses and secondary uses.
Primary uses
The three major uses of citation indexes, which are of interest to
those who are engaged in research, teaching and technology diffusion, are
identification of research projects, evaluation of performance of scientists,
and writing history of science.
1. Identification of research project: Before submitting a research
project, a researcher must assess whether the area of his proposed
research has been taken up earlier or not, if yes, can it be taken up
for further investigation, whether the research project is viable or
not. In order to provide answer to these questions, he must have
appropriate data to convince the research managers. The citation
indexes are valuable and dependable tools which the researcher can
use for this purpose. For example, Science Citation Index is one
such tool which can help a researcher to find answers to the above
questions so that he could identify a viable project in his discipline.
Using various parts of SCI, the researcher can carry out literature
survey in his area of interest, and identify a problem for his research.
2. Evaluation of performance of scientists
Shepard’s Citation Index and Science Citation Index were originally
designed to help the lawyers and the scientists, respectively to
retrieve information of their interest in their respective disciplines.
But SCI can now be used as a tool for evaluating the performance of
the scientists. By using the SCI database, it is possible to count the
number of citations attributed to a given scientist. Frequently cited
scientists are those who have standing in their respective disciplines.
For example, Eugene Garfield used the SCI database and prepared a
list of fifty most cited scientists for 1967. It was found that two of
the scientists who appeared in this list got Nobel Prize in 1969.
Since there are millions of scientists in the world, producing a list of
fifty scientists containing two Nobel Prize winners was a marvelous

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achievement. This ability of Citation Index to measure the impact

of a scientist’s work has economic consequences. Thus such a tool
can be used as an aid for evaluating the present scientific personnel
for giving prizes, grants and fellowships, or, for hiring new scientists
in order to give impetus to the research programmes.
3. Writing history of science
The definite relationship between the cited and the citing items form
the basis of citation indexing. This can be explained with the
example of SCI which consists of three parts. The arrangement of
its various parts is explained elsewhere in this write up. The citing
items are from the current year while the cited items can be from any
year in the recorded history. In the Citation Index, the cited and
citing authors are juxtaposed. The former, arranged in alphabetical
order, are followed by the latter, again in alphabetical order. This
order establishes a relationship between the current and past
literature in a given subject, and can be exploited for conducting a
literature survey for writing the history of science, current trends,
etc.
Secondary uses
Besides primary uses, there are secondary uses of citation indexes.
The secondary uses are mostly addressed to the librarians, information
scientists and documentalists. Such uses are listed below:
- Use as a bibliography
- Preparation of ranked lists of periodicals
- Finding out relative use of various types of documents
- Finding out useful life of documents
- Finding out relatedness and dependence of subjects
- Finding out roots of subjects
These uses have not been discussed because the participants of this
course will find them of little use.
Science Citation Index (SCI)
SCI was first published in 1963. It is published by the Institute of
Scientific Information, Philadelphia, USA. It provides an index to the
contents of all issues of more than 2500 selected journals published during
a calendar year. The covered journals are called ‘source journals or source
documents’, and the articles they contain are called ‘source articles or
source items’. All journals are indexed comprehensively to eliminate
doubts as to whether or not a particular article is indexed.
The SCI consists of three separate indexes – the Citation Index, the
Source Index and the Permuterm Subject Index. All the indexes are

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publishes quarterly for the first three quarters. The indexes for the fourth
quarter are incorporated in the annual commutation for each index.
Citation Index
The Citation Index is arrange alphabetically by cited author. An
entry for each cited item contains such bibliographical details as: first
author’s name and initials, year of publication of the cited item, the name of
the publication in which the cited item appeared along with its volume and
page numbers. If more than one cited items are attributed to any one
author, these are arranged chronologically by cited year. The source articles
citing a particular reference are featured alphabetically by the first source
author immediately under each cited item. The source item line contains
the citing author’s name, name of the publication in which the citing item
appeared along with the year of publication, volume and page number. A
coded symbol which appear in this line, indicate whether the citing item is
an article, abstract, editorial, letter, technical note, etc. The citing items are
always taken from the current year, whereas the cited items can be from any
year. A typical column from the Citation Index is reproduced in Figure 1.
Citation author Cited document Source Volume Page
year publication

Citing authors Source Journal Citing ref. year

ABRAHAM B M 55-PHYS REV 09 551

PESHKOV VN SOV PH US R 68 11 209
65-9 INT C LOW TEMP A 133
MOTA A C PHYS REV 69 177 266
66-PHYS REV LETTERS 16 1039
NINICKE W PHYS REV L L 69 22 170
66 – PHYS REV LETTERS 20 649
ANDERSON A C J APPL PHYS 68 39 5878
MESS K W PHYSICA 69 41 260
MOTA A C PHYS REV 69 177 266
ABRAHAM E P PERSONAL COMMUNICATION 09 551
MORIN R B J AM CHEM S 69 91 1396
37 – NATURE 140 24

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RETZERFE W ARCH HY BAK 68 152 477

54 – BIOCHEM J 58 266
ABRAHAM G J S 65 – AM J PHYSIOL 208 459
BOND R F AM J PHYSL 69 216 393
BERKOWER L AM J PSYCHI 69 125 1067

Fig. 1: Typical column from the Citation Index of Science Citation

Index
Citation Index has a separate section for patents. This section is
called Patent Citation Index.
Source Index
The Source Index is a combined table of contents of all the source
documents covered by SCI in which entries are arranged alphabetically by
the name of the source item’s first author. Each entry includes all co-
authors, full title of the citing item, title of the journal, its volume and issue
numbers, page number, type of document i.e. whether the source item is
review, letter, correction, etc., and the number of references given at the end
of the article. The ISI accession number follows the full title of the article.
A sample of Source Index is given in Figure 2.

Source Source Co-author Source page No. of ref. Cited ISI acc.
author journal No.

Source vol. Source year Source item

ABRAHAM F H ROBERTS E H

ANN BOTANY 33 153 69 17R N129 C6832

37 – NATURE 140 24
EFFECT OF TEMPERATURE AND MOISTURE ON INDUCTION OF
GENETIC CHANGES IN SEEDS OF BARLEY BROAD BEANS AND
PEAS DURING STORAGE
ABRAHAM F H ROBERTS E H
ANN BOTANY 33 169 69 18R N129 C6832
EFFECT OF SEED STORAGE CONDITIONS ON GROWTH AND YIELD
OF BARLEY BROAD BEANS AND PEAS
ABRAHAM F H

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ARCH 1 PHAR 176 395 68 13R N2 C6364

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ANORECTIC ACTIVITY OF d-
AMPHETAMINE CHLORPHENTERMINE AND FENELURAMINE IN
AUROTHIOGLUCOSE OBESE AND NON-OBESE MICE
ABRAHAM F H SEE KHALIFA H MICROCHEM J 13
ABDEL-AA HEDRICK N SMITH J
FED PROC 28 278 69 M NO R N2 C7705
ADENOSINETRIPHOPHATASE ATPASE AND METABOLISM OF
NUCLETOIDES IN RAT BRAIN SYNAPTOSOMES
ABDELAL A KESSLAER DP INGRAHAM JI
J BACT 97 66 69N 8R N1 C4998
ARGININE-AUTOXOTROPHIC PHENOTYPE RESULTING FROM A
MUTATION IN PRYA GENE OF ESCHERICHIA COLI B-R

Fig. 2: Typical column from Source Index of Science Citation Index

Permuterm Subject Index (PSI)

This is the third major index of SCI. Permuterm is a short form of
‘permuted terms’. All the significant words in the title and subtitle of every
article covered by Source Index, are included in this Index. All the
possible pairs of these significant words are formed by their permutation.
For example, for a title with ‘n’ significant words in it, there will be n(n-1)
paris. In this system, every word is given same importance. Therefore,
each word becomes a primary term at one place in the Index and co-term at
another place. The PSI is arranged alphabetically by primary terms. All
co-terms which co-occur with a particular primary term are indented. The
co-terms are arranged alphabetically among themselves. The name of each
author whose article contains the co-term and the primary term, is
mentioned against each co-term. For anonymous entries, the journal title
replaces the author’s name. Figure 4 displays a typical column from the
PSI.
PRIMARY TERM PRIMARY TERM
COTERM COTERM
DISEASE INDIA
GOITRE DISEASE
HILL AREAS GOITRE
INDIA HILL AREAS

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SYMPTOM SYMPTOM
TREATMENT TREATMENT
GOITRE SYMPTOM
DISEASE DISEASE
HILL AREAS GOITRE
INDIA HILL AREAS
SYMPTOM INDIA
TREATMENT TREATMENT
HILL AREAS TREATMENT
DISEASE DISEASE
GOITRE GOITRE
INDIA HILL AREAS
SYMPTON INDIA
TREATMENT SYMPTOM

Strategy for retrieval of information from the SCI

Basic search technique involves the identification of the name of an
author who has written an article related to the problem of the researcher.
With this reference, he enters the Citation Index and looks up the name of
that author in the same manners as we do while consulting a dictionary.
Once the author’s name is spotted, the researcher can glance through the
citing items and are listed under this author. Information about the author,
journal title, volume and page number of the citing item is noted. With this
information in hand, the researcher turns to the ‘Source Index’ and locates
the name of the citing author. At this point, he finds complete
bibliographical details of the citing item. The researcher now examines the
source item title and can select the articles of his interest. With
bibliographical details in hand, he can get the journals either from the
library of his institute or he may approach some other library/information
centre in the country or abroad for getting a copy of the article.
The search can be expanded in order to prepare a more extensive
bibliography. For example, the names of the citing authors located from the
Source Index can be used as search terms in the Citation Index.
The PSI is used if the researcher does not know a specific author for
entering the Citation Index. In order to use PSI, the researcher compiles a

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list of terms that describe his problem best. One of these terms is made a
primary term and the other terms are considered as co-term. The primary
term is located in the PSI. Under the primary term, a co-term is spotted.
The name of the author mentioned against the matching primary term and
its co-term, is noted. The author’s name is used as a piece of information
for entering the Citation Index if he is treated as cited author and Source
Index if he is considered as a citing author. The pictorial description of the
search strategy is given in the Figure 4.
Books

Abstracting and
indexing services
Other Other
works by works by
author of source
starting author
Ref.
Library
Catalogues

Researcher’s Starting Citation Source Source Citation

Knowledge Reference Index Index Document given at
end of
source
doc.
Primary Journal
Bibliography
Conference
Proceeding

Other Sources
Fig. 2: Typical column from Source Index of Science Citation Index

References
Garfield, Eugene: Science Citation Index. New dimension in indexing.
Science 1926, 66, 385-89.
Guha, B: Documentation and Information. Services, techniques and
systems. Calcutta, World Press, 1983. pp. 257-283.
Landau, Thomas, ed: Encyclopedia of Librarianship. 2nd ed. London,
Bowes and Bowes, 1961.
The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1961. Vol. 2, 4
and 8.

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Weinstock, Melvin, Citation Indexes. In Encyclopedia of Library and

Information Science, ed. by Allen Kent and Harold Lancour. New
York, Marcel. Dekker, 1971. Vol. 5, pp. 16-40.

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