Author inflation leads to a breakdown of Lotka's law

Hildrun Kretschmer · Ronald Rousseau

60 citations0/0 files storedJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

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scientometrics and bibliometrics research Psychology Research and Bibliometrics Web visibility and informetrics

Abstract

Abstract It is empirically shown that, even using the normal or total counting procedure, Lotka's law breaks down when articles with a large, i.e., more than hundred, number of authors are included in the bibliography. The explanation of this phenomenon is that the conditions for an application of the basic success‐breeds‐success model are not fulfilled any more. Studying articles with many authors means dealing with items (the articles) having multiple sources (the authors), hence Egghe's generalized success‐breeds‐success model, leading to not necessarily decreasing distributions, explains the observed irregularities.

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References

1976A general theory of bibliometric and other cumulative advantage processes 1985Lotka's law: A testing procedure 1979Studies in scientific collaboration Part III. Professionalization and the natural history of modern scientific co-authorship 1986Empirical validation of Lotka's law

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