Ming-Yueh Tsaya* Chi-Ju Chiub Abstract
Using informetrics and citation analysis, the present study explores and compares characteristics and types of citations in the humanity journal articles that published in Taiwan. Research articles published in 2011, from top humanity journals, assessed by the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Science Council in Taiwan, were collected and analyzed. The analysis was done by structure of journal article and location of citations. In addition to citations appearing in the text, the phenomena of citation type will be compared and discussed in the latter part. The results of this study revealed articles of literature, history, philosophy and arts were mostly argumentative, while linguistic articles tended to comply with IMRAD (Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, And Discussion) formats. Introducing primary materials from original works, humanity scholars tended to cite for factual descriptions or to support authors’ perspectives. Secondary materials, such as later studies on the original works by other scholars, were seen the most in the disciplines of linguistics while the least in that of history. In general, the distribution of citation types is similar between articles in domestic and foreign journals; merely minor differences occurred among disciplines. While citing characteristics and information needs of humanities scholars revealed in this study may contribute to collection development of libraries or refinement of information services to researchers, suggestions based on analysis of research results may also serve as reference for standardization of writing and publication of journal articles in Taiwan. Aiming at further exploration of citations, this study is expected to provide a better understanding of the nature of citations and to serve as a foundation for future empirical studies.
Keywords: Humanity; Citation type; Journal article structure; Classification of citation; Citation analysis
SUMMARY
This study conducted informetric and citation analysis on a sample of research articles published by top domestic scholarly journals, which assessed by the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Science Council in Taiwan, in the humanities disciplines: literature, history, philosophy, linguistics and fine arts and investigated the article structure and the location (in text) of
a Professor, Graduate Institute of Library, Information and Archival Studies, National Cheng-Chi University, Taipei, Taiwan
b Graduate Student, Graduate Institute of Library, Information and Archival Studies, National Cheng-Chi University, Taipei, Taiwan
* Principal author for all correspondence. E-mail: mytsay@nccu.edu.tw
http://joemls.tku.edu.tw citations. The study conducted purposive sampling method and selected 160 research articles from the five disciplines that were published in 2011. The full-text and references of the selected articles were either downloaded from electronic journal databases or photocopied from the print journals and were the data source for citation analysis by the disciplines. After processing the collected citation data was processed using the spreadsheet software Excel, a custom bibliographic database was established. In addition, the study applied the citation types identified by Frost and analyzed the differences in citation types across disciplines domestically and the disciplines overseas.
The study found: 1) Humanities journal articles were mostly argumentative—
the article structure in literature, history and philosophy were very similar and the writing style was mostly free-form critiques and discussion based on the authors’
thinking. Additionally, humanities journal articles often consisted of Introduction, Body and Conclusion sections and did not have a clear format specification because the act of writing was part of conducting research. Linguistics journal articles followed the IMRAD structure. Writing styles and journal publication styles varied among the disciplines which demonstrated the fact that the thinking and theory of each discipline had its own unique characteristics and system. 2) Domestically, the humanities argumentative articles used citations in the Body sections most and in the Conclusion sections least. It showed that the conclusions of these articles were often concluding statements therefore other scholars’
opinions were rarely cited. The structured articles with IMRAD (Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, And Discussion) format published in the linguistics journals and some fine arts journals cited mostly in the Introduction sections and in the Methodology sections (second-most). This type of citations primarily focused on developing the definition and the conception of the research.
3) Humanities disciplines often cited primary resources from original works and the citations were used mainly to support authors’ perspectives or to describe facts.
The history and the philosophy disciplines valued the citations of original works and texts most while the discipline of linguistics cited the least amount of original works. 4) Secondary resources, such as later studies on the original works by other scholars, were cited most by the articles from the linguistics discipline while least by the articles from the history discipline. Linguistics is a newer discipline, which cited the meaning and history of vocabularies most frequently. The philosophy discipline also cited some new vocabulary. For the history discipline, citing about vocabulary was rare because there were consensus established about the usage of the vocabulary. 5) To author papers for the linguistics or the fine arts discipline, scholars essentially cited original works or text of primary resources and secondary resources which discoursed the primary resources.
http://joemls.tku.edu.tw Furthermore, the references, readings or bibliographic information related to the specific editions of the resources were commonly used to recommend additional resources for readers. 6) There was a significant difference between the linguistics discipline and other humanities disciplines. The linguistics discipline rarely cited primary resources or documents. Among all humanities disciplines, there was a higher chance to find citations that were in agreement with the authors’ point of view in the linguistics discipline. 7) In general, the distribution of citation types was similar among articles in domestic and foreign journals;
merely minor differences occurred among disciplines. Foreign journals of the literature discipline did not use citation types other than primary or secondary resources while a small number of domestic literature journals used this type of citations. Some foreign journals of the history discipline provided the type of citations that addressed the bibliographic information about a specific edition (of the resources); this citation type was not found among the domestic history journals. Domestically, the study of philosophy focused on utilizing references as well as related original works or texts for research. Foreign philosophy research more emphasized on the critiques and discussion of the secondary resources and often opposed the information presented in the cited works. Domestically the fine arts journals cited primary works and secondary works in a similar way while the foreign fine arts journals more often cited primary works than secondary works.
For the linguistics discipline, the distribution of citation types were completely opposite in the domestic and foreign journals: the domestic linguistics journals cited primary works more (cited secondary works less) while the foreign journals cited secondary works more (cited primary works less).
This study conducted citation analysis and the results revealed the fact that, for humanities research, original texts, works and primary materials and documents, such primary resources had a significant effect on the promotion and dissemination of scholarship; the effect was greater than the effect of secondary resources, which are later studies on the original works. With the exception of linguistics, primary resources are the major source of references for the humanities research, particularly for the history and the philosophy studies. Humanities scholars’ citing characteristics and information needs can be understood through the results of this study. The results can also apply to library collection development practices and to improve information services to researchers. Furthermore, this study compared domestic journal article structures and composition specifications and provided recommendations which serve as reference for standardization of writing and publication of journal articles in Taiwan. This study of domestic and foreign humanities research, citation types and location of citations can also advise domestic humanities scholars to reflect
http://joemls.tku.edu.tw on what effect and impact previous studies have and applied that as a foundation for related research. In addition, this study is expected to provide a better understanding of the nature of citations and to serve as a foundation for future empirical studies. However, the small number of samples involved in this study preclude from making confident generalizations regarding the frequency of the citation types across these humanity disciplines as a whole. Thus, the collection and analysis of a larger sample size is also suggested for further study.
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Ming-Yueh Tsay 0000-0001-5484-1313 Chi-Ju Chiu 0000-0001-7523-183X