[Taxacom] Fwd: Taxonomic citations

[Frederick W Schueler]

Alan S. Weakley wrote:
> 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. 

* there's some things that it's inappropriate to quantify, and for that 
kind of thing, if one is to attempt to quantify them, it's especially 
important to do it well.

It seems to me that this practice of counting up citations is primarily 
a manifestation of laziness and cowardice among promotion committees who 
lack the courage to say: "Dr X, this paper of yours about 
dibubbliomunktase degradation in populations of streamside 
Desmognathines is a piece of crap."

But maybe I've been outside the academic mainstream for too long: is 
there a legitimate use for such indices?

fred.
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