[Taxacom] Fwd: Taxonomic revision, citations

Wed Oct 28 16:03:20 CDT 2009

The third and also very significant factor that distorts (downwards) the
actual citation of taxonomic works is the practice of the citation compilers
of only looking at citations for, say, 3 years after the publication of the
paper.  Citations taking place after 3 years are not counted.  The
implication is that science works fast, and any publication more than 3
years old has had its citations asymptote to zero and all of its useful
scientific content wrung out of it.  We all know that taxonomic literature
has a much greater halflife.  I regularly cite books and journal articles
from 100 years ago, and in most papers I have written the number of
citations per decade stays pretty even from 2000-2010 back to 1950-1960.
Some kinds of science simply work at different time scales.  

-- Alan

Alan Weakley, Curator and Adjunct Assistant Professor
University of North Carolina Herbarium (NCU), North Carolina Botanical
Garden
Department of Biology and Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology
UNC-Chapel Hill
Campus Box 3280, 419 Coker Hall
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3280
919.962.0578
www.herbarium.unc.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of
Frank.Krell at dmns.org
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 4:38 PM
To: myrmica at hotmail.com; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Fwd: Taxonomic revision, citations

Actually, taxonomic papers are more frequently cited than commonly assumed. 
The low citation rate in commercially available databases (Web of Science,
Scopus) is a result of two factors:

1. the coverage of those databases. A very low portion of taxonomic journals
are covered as source journals, e.g. Science Citation Index Expanded covers
only 27 entomological journals that publish taxonomical content, out of
about 900 existing entomological journals that publish taxonomically
relevant content (Nature 415 (2002), p. 957). Comparing the coverage of the
citations of my own papers in Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar with
the citations I happened to spot over the last 20 years, I found that Web of
Science contained 25.7%, Scopus 14.3% and Google Scholar 24.4 % of the
citations of my papers. [Krell, FT 2009. The poverty of citation databases:
data mining is crucial for fair metrical evaluation of research performance.
BioScience 59(1): 6-7 - if you want a pdf, let me know] Citations of my
taxonomic papers were particularly underrepresented.

2. the weird distinction between literature references and authorities of
taxon names. Authors of names are frequently cited, but not contained in the
literature cited. This might be caused by the misunderstanding that authors
of taxa are part of the names of taxa, but they are simple references to the
original description, nothing more. It is a luxury in the taxonomic
literature that we deliberately not give credit to authors of taxonomic
names by not including those cited references in the 'literature cited'.
Recently some mycologists published a plead to change this practice
(Seifert, K.A., Crous, P.W. & Frisvad, J.C. 2008: Correcting the impact
factors of taxonomic journals by Appropriate Citation of Taxonomy (ACT).
Persoonia 20: 105; www.persoonia.org/issue/20/08.pdf).

Cheers

Frank

Dr Frank T. Krell
Curator of Entomology
Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature Chair,
ICZN ZooBank Committee Department of Zoology Denver Museum of Nature &
Science
2001 Colorado Boulevard
Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA
Frank.Krell at dmns.org
Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244
Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492
http://www.dmns.org/main/en/General/Science/ScientificExperts/Biographies/kr
ellFrank.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roberto Keller
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:18 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Fwd: Taxonomic revision

>
> stupid question: is there soem nice crisp definition for a 'taxonomic 
> revision'.
>

How about "A basic and fundamental scientific work that will nevertheless
never be cited"

Here's a good one for entomologists:
*Bolton, B.* 2007. How to conduct large-scale taxonomic revisions in
Formicidae, pp 52-71. *In* Snelling, R. R., B. L. Fisher, and P. S. Ward
(eds) *Advances in ant systematics (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): homage to E.
O. Wilson - 50 years of contributions*. Memoirs of the American
Entomological Institute, 80.

PDF available here (courtesy of antbase.org) :
http://antbase.org/ants/publications/21274/21274.pdf

--
Roberto A. Keller, PhD
roberto at kellerperez.com
http://roberto.kellerperez.com/
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