Bibliometric and co-citation analysis
Map publication patterns and intellectual connections
Bibliometrics measures publication and citation patterns. Co-citation analysis connects works cited together by later publications; bibliographic coupling connects works that share references, and co-word analysis connects terms. These networks answer different questions. Corpus construction, citation windows and counting choices shape the map, while a readable layout is an approximation to relational data, not a direct measure of intellectual importance.
Use to examine a field's development, influential literature or research communities when a suitable bibliographic database provides reliable metadata and cited-reference information.
Strengths
- Handles large bodies of publications reproducibly
- Reveals clusters and connections across research communities
Limitations
- Database and language coverage create systematic blind spots
- Citation frequency mixes influence, age, criticism and visibility
Know the boundary
Co-citation is not shared authorship, and citations are not a direct quality score.