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arXiv · 1306.4223

Growth in the number of references in engineering journal papers during the 1972-2013 period

Iñaki Ucar·Felipe López-Fernandino·Pablo Rodriguez-Ulibarri·Laura Sesma-Sanchez·Veronica Urrea-Micó·Joaquín Sevilla
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Abstract

The number of references per paper, perhaps the best single index of a journal's scholarliness, has been studied in different disciplines and periods. In this paper we present a four decade study of eight engineering journals. A data set of over 70000 references was generated after automatic data gathering and manual inspection for errors. Results show a significant increase in the number of references per paper, the average rises from 8 in 1972 to 25 in 2013. This growth presents an acceleration around the year 2000, consistent with a much easier access to search engines and documents produced by the generalization of the Internet.

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Iñaki Ucar, Felipe López-Fernandino, Pablo Rodriguez-Ulibarri, Laura Sesma-Sanchez, Veronica Urrea-Micó, Joaquín Sevilla. 2013-09-01. Growth in the number of references in engineering journal papers during the 1972-2013 period. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1113-6

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