Whisner, Mary, My Year of Citation Studies, Parts 1-4 (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall 2018). Law Library Journal, Vol. 110, Nos. 1-4, Pp. 167-80, 283-94, 419-28, 561-77 (2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3303495
Have you ever wondered about citation rates for law review articles? I have, and it led to a series of four pieces in Law Library Journal‘s “Practicing Reference” column. It started with a professor who asked for lists about frequently cited student notes and comments, thinking that those would be good examples to show students in a journal seminar. That led me to investigate different tools for tracking citations—HeinOnline, Shepard’s, KeyCite, and Web of Science—looking at pieces published in a sample of journals in 2012. Parts 3 and 4 studied citations to articles from a sample of journals in 1982, 1992, and 2002. Here I consolidate the four parts into one PDF, for readers’ convenience. Part 4 concludes with a summary of findings and comments on what I learned by undertaking the project.
