LogFAQs > #956712457

Shezarr posted...

I mean, number of citations doesn't really mean anything, especially in smaller fields. If there's a lot it can tell you that it's a well-regarded or commonly-cited paper, but having few citations could just mean it's new or written by a less well-known scholar who might be overshadowed by bigger names in their field.

Of course it's not the end-all-be-all measurement. But there is a reason university departments are so obsessed with their total citations. It's an easy rough measurement to see if anyone else even thinks the research contributed anything else to the conversation. So when an anti-vaxxer sends you some random research paper, with a citation of 0 or a citation of 1 and that other citation is the same author citing themselves, you have good reason to consider it's not really "what the research shows" or "what studies say" or whatever.

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