[Taxacom] Fwd: Taxonomic revision, citations

Wed Oct 28 17:03:34 CDT 2009

An ironic example of the dismissal of "old" publications as out of date
is that of Croizat that was widely rejected as irrelevant for 'modern'
biogeography in the early 1980's because the works were over 30 years
old. Various biogeographers were astonished that anything so old could
possibly be current (never mind that they were always citing Darwin).

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Alan S. Weakley
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:03 PM
To: Frank.Krell at dmns.org; myrmica at hotmail.com;
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Fwd: Taxonomic revision, citations

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/Biographie
s/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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