Universality of citation distributions: towards an objective measure of scientific impact

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dc.creatorRadicchi, Filippo
dc.creatorFortunato, Santo
dc.creatorCastellano, Claudio
dc.date2008-06-05
dc.date2008-10-27
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:15:07Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:15:07Z
dc.descriptionWe study the distributions of citations received by a single publication within several disciplines, spanning broad areas of science. We show that the probability that an article is cited $c$ times has large variations between different disciplines, but all distributions are rescaled on a universal curve when the relative indicator $c_f=c/c_0$ is considered, where $c_0$ is the average number of citations per article for the discipline. In addition we show that the same universal behavior occurs when citation distributions of articles published in the same field, but in different years, are compared. These findings provide a strong validation of $c_f$ as an unbiased indicator for citation performance across disciplines and years. Based on this indicator, we introduce a generalization of the h-index suitable for comparing scientists working in different fields.
dc.description7 pages, 5 figures. accepted for publication in Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/0806.0974
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/0806.0974
dc.identifierProc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 17268-17272 (2008)
dc.identifierdoi:10.1073/pnas.0806977105
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/173076
dc.subjectPhysics and Society
dc.subjectStatistical Mechanics
dc.subjectDigital Libraries
dc.subjectData Analysis, Statistics and Probability
dc.titleUniversality of citation distributions: towards an objective measure of scientific impact
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