Source-linked AI summary
Detecting the historical roots of research fields by reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS)
Werner Marx, Lutz Bornmann, Andreas Barth, Loet Leydesdorff
TL;DR
Research fields depend on past literature, but identifying their most important historical publications requires a quantitative approach. This paper introduces RPYS, which analyzes cited-reference publication years and illustrates it with graphene and solar-cell research, where frequently cited historical publications emerge as peaks.
Problem
The study addresses the need to identify the most important historical publications underlying specific research fields.
Method
RPYS analyzes reference-citation frequencies by cited publication year to reveal historical publications and their significance within a research field.
Results
Frequently cited historical publications emerge as differentiated peaks in research on graphene and solar cells.
Takeaways & Limitations
RPYS can determine the historical roots of research fields and quantify their impact on current research.
Takeaways & Limitations
Web of Science search functions were not optimized for the citation indexes used, which extend back to 1900.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
We introduce the quantitative method named "reference publication year spectroscopy" (RPYS). With this method one can determine the historical roots of research fields and quantify their impact on current research. RPYS is based on the analysis of the frequency with which references are cited in the publications of a specific research field in terms of the publication years of these cited references. The origins show up in the form of more or less pronounced peaks mostly caused by individual publications which are cited particularly frequently. In this study, we use research on graphene and on solar cells to illustrate how RPYS functions, and what results it can deliver.
Introduction
The introduction frames current research as dependent on its relationship to past literature, expressed through references. It introduces reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS), a quantitative method for identifying important historical publications in a field from cited-reference publication years, illustrated with graphene and solar-cell research.
- Motivation: Current research depends on its relationship to past literature, which is expressed through references.This relationship links earlier publications to later knowledge claims and provides insight into the historical context of research fields.
- Contribution: The study introduces a quantitative method for revealing important historical publications in a research field from the publication years of cited references.The approach focuses on historical publications underlying the relevant literature and is presented as a special application of cited reference analysis.
- Contribution: The method is named reference publication year spectroscopy (RPYS), by analogy with spectra characterized by pronounced peaks.RPYS analyzes reference publication-year frequencies to identify historical roots and important cited publications.
- Examples: The study illustrates RPYS through research on graphene and on solar cells and photovoltaics.These examples demonstrate how the historical roots of publications cited within specific research fields can be determined and further analyzed.
Methods
RPYS reverses the usual citation-analysis perspective by examining the publication years of references cited within a selected research field. Frequent historical reference-publication years appear as peaks, often driven by highly cited individual works that reveal the field’s historical roots.
- Field-specific cited-reference analysis: RPYS selects publications from a specific research field and analyzes the references cited in them to assess cited publications’ significance within that field.This reverses the perspective of starting with citations received by field publications.
- Reference publication years: Publication-year analysis of cited references quantifies historical publications’ significance and reveals a research field’s historical roots.The method emphasizes reference publication years (RPYs), distinct from the RPYS method name.
- Peak detection: Frequently occurring RPYs become increasingly differentiated toward the past and usually appear as distinct peaks in RPY distribution curves.These peaks are identified by analyzing the publication years of all references cited in the field’s publications.
- Historical-root identification: During the 19th and first half of the 20th century, peaks are predominantly formed by single relatively highly cited publications that contain the field’s historical roots.Analyzing the publications underlying the peaks identifies these historically important works.
Discussion
The discussion presents RPYS as a simple, broadly applicable method for identifying historical roots and quantifying their influence through citation behavior. It highlights RPYS’s interpretive limits, field-specific applicability, and greater simplicity than citation-network alternatives.
- Contribution and method: RPYS identifies research fields’ historical roots and quantifies their impact on current research by analyzing reference-citation frequency by publication year.Historical origins appear as peaks, often driven by individual frequently cited publications.
- Limitations: Expert review is required to verify which peak-generating publications genuinely contributed to the research field.RPYS indicates possible origins but does not by itself establish historical significance.
- Applications: RPYS is simple, applicable across disciplines, and illustrated using graphene and solar-cell research.The examples demonstrate how the method functions and what results it can deliver.
- Limitations: RPYS may be less informative for very new fields whose roots do not extend far into the past, and historical bibliometrics is affected by under-citation.Obliteration by incorporation and the palimpsestic syndrome can cause original sources to disappear from formal and informal citations.
- Related methods: RPYS is simpler than co-citation, research-front, and algorithmic-historiography approaches, but it does not reveal historical papers’ citation networks.Instead, it quantitatively identifies historical papers of particular interest for a specific research field or topic.
Conclusions
RPYS detects frequently cited historical papers in field-specific literature and quantifies their citation impact, identifying the historical roots of research fields. Its reference-based selection requires careful analysis to establish the papers’ significance.
- Conclusions: RPYS detects the most-frequently cited historical papers in field-specific literature and quantifies their citation impact on current research.These papers normally comprise the historical roots of the corresponding research field.
- Conclusions: Careful analysis of detected papers is required to reveal their real significance, after which bibliometric methods can examine their citation histories and co-citations.The selected papers come from a candidate list of highly cited historical papers in a specific research field.
- Conclusions: RPYS mirrors the reference side of a field, whereas algorithmic historiography focuses on networks of publication sets including early papers.In graphene, the historical papers concern graphite or graphite oxide rather than graphene itself.
- Conclusions: Historical papers are detected from references cited by the relevant community without further assumptions, unlike direct selection through an appropriate search query.Directly searching for such papers is hardly possible because historical roots often concern unforeseeable aspects.
Tables and Figures
The tables and figures document the datasets, journal mappings, cited-reference distributions, and historically prominent publications used to analyze graphene and solar-cell research. They identify highly cited early references and summarize the historical concepts associated with them.
- Graphene: 962 of 1,085 references refer to Wallace’s 1947 paper on the band theory of graphite.The accompanying comment links isolated graphite layers to predicted extraordinary electronic characteristics.
- Graphene: 2,095 out of 2,971 references refer to Hummers and Offeman’s 1958 preparation of graphite oxide.The cited work describes graphite oxide as a layered material produced by strongly oxidizing graphite.
- Solar cells: 923 out of 2,349 references refer to Shockley and Queisser’s 1961 detailed-balance limit for p-n junction solar-cell efficiency.The associated explanation places the maximum single-junction solar-cell efficiency at about 34%.
- Graphene: 15,895 papers across 668 journals containing “graphene” in the title underpin the graphene journal mapping.The dataset also reports 16,145 WOS downloads and 32,200 attributed WOS categories.