A noninformetric analysis of the relationship between citation age and journal productivity

Abstract

A problem, raised by Wallace (JASIS, 37, 136-145, [1986]), on the relation between the journal's median citation age and its number of articles is studied. Leaving open the problem as such, we give a statistical explanation of this relationship, when replacing median by mean in Wallace's problem. The cloud of points, found by Wallace, is explained in this sense that the points are scattered over the area in first quadrant, limited by a curve of the form [formule] where E is a constant. This curve is obtained by using the Central Limit Theorem in statistics and, hence, has no intrinsic informetric foundation. The article closes with some reflections on explanations of regularities in informetrics, based on statistical, probabilistic or informetric results, or on a combination thereof.