Uncited papers in the structure of scientific communication

The uncitedness phenomenon was noticed in the 1960s, and Hamilton’s seminal paper in 1991 on uncitedness provoked debate about uncited scientific work. Uncitedness is usually associated with poor quality and zero-impact papers, but some have argued that the community has been misguided to think uncited papers are intellectually worthless. This study aims to help arts and humanities and social sciences scholars take necessary measures to avoid uncitedness by examining the relationship between uncitedness and document features, including document type, publication language, the number of authors, the length of the document, and the number of references. The study collected publications in information science and library science, economics in social sciences, and history and philosophy in arts and humanities. The publication period was from 1997 to 2016, and the citation window was 5 years. In total, we retrieved 653,796 documents from the Web of Science database. The results show inverse relations between uncitedness and document length, number of authors, and number of references. The findings suggest more uncited papers in arts and humanities than in social sciences. The findings also confirmed that the number of uncited research articles, reviews, and proceeding papers had decreased steadily from 1997 to 2016.

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What makes an article a must read in medical education?

Nakhostin-Ansari,

Mirabal,

Mendes

et al. 2024

BMC Med Educ

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Background The dissemination of published scholarship is intended to bring new evidence and ideas to a wide audience. However, the increasing number of articles makes it challenging to determine where to focus one’s attention. This study describes factors that may influence decisions to read and recommend a medical education article. Methods Authors analyzed data collected from March 2021 through September 2022 during a monthly process to identify “Must Read” articles in medical education. An international team of health sciences educators, learners, and researchers voted on titles and abstracts to advance articles to full text review. Full texts were rated using five criteria: relevance, methodology, readability, originality, and whether it addressed a critical issue in medical education. At an end-of-month meeting, 3–4 articles were chosen by consensus as “Must Read” articles. Analyses were used to explore the associations of article characteristics and ratings with Must Read selection. Results Over a period of 19 months, 7487 articles from 856 journals were screened, 207 (2.8%) full texts were evaluated, and 62 (0.8%) were chosen as Must Reads. During screening, 3976 articles (53.1%) received no votes. BMC Medical Education had the largest number of articles at screening (n = 1181, 15.8%). Academic Medicine had the largest number as Must Reads (n = 22, 35.5%). In logistic regressions adjusting for the effect of individual reviewers, all rating criteria were independently associated with selection as a Must Read (p < 0.05), with methodology (OR 1.44 (95%CI = 1.23–1.69) and relevance (OR 1.43 (95%CI = 1.20–1.70)) having the highest odds ratios. Conclusions Over half of the published medical education articles did not appeal to a diverse group of potential readers; this represents a missed opportunity to make an impact and potentially wasted effort. Our findings suggest opportunities to enhance value in the production and dissemination of medical education scholarship.

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Uncited papers in the structure of scientific communication

Cited by 4 publications

References 72 publications

Rank analysis of most cited publications, a new approach for research assessments

Rank analysis of most cited publications, a new approach for research assessments

Why aren’t published works cited? Exploring the influences of bibliographic characteristics on uncitedness phenomenon in social sciences and arts and humanities

What makes an article a must read in medical education?

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