Research Fronts 2014 : 100 Top Ranked Specialties In The Sciences And Social / quote 5 of 9
Co-citation analysis vs bibliographic coupling
Both Small and Marshakova- Shaikevich contrasted co-citation with bibliographic coupling, which had been described by Myer Kessler in 196315. Bibliographic coupling measures subject similarity between documents based on the frequency of shared cited references: if two works often cite the same literature, there is a probability they are related in their subject content. Co-citation analysis inverts this idea: instead of the similarity relation being established by what the publications cited, co-citation brings publications together by what cites them. With bibliographic coupling, the similarity relationships are static because their cited references are fixed, whereas similarity between documents determined by co-citation can change as new citing papers are published. Small has noted that he preferred co-citation to bibliographic coupling because he “sought a measure that reflected scientists’ active and changing perceptions16.”