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Citation counts and chemists’ judgments of a paper’s significance measure different things. In a 2018 study of 63 chemistry papers, researchers found that chemists’ guesses about which papers were highly cited tracked citation totals better than their judgments of significance did. The authors also found that an author-level h-index tracked citation counts more closely than any survey response—but cautioned that neither measure captures a paper’s full importance.
What the study compared
Borchardt and co-authors examined 63 papers from one 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. They asked chemists which papers they considered most significant, which they thought were most cited, which they would share with other chemists, and which they would share with a broader audience. The study compared those responses with article citation counts recorded in Web of Science in November 2013 and November 2016, corresponding-author h-indexes from January 2016, and web page views and Mendeley metrics from November 2016. The paper appeared in PLOS One on March 28, 2018. Read the study.
Of 408 survey respondents, 45 responses were excluded, leaving 363 for analysis. Respondents were recruited through online chemistry communication channels, making this a self-selected sample rather than a representative survey of all chemists. The four main questions were also not randomized, so earlier questions may have affected later answers. The authors describe these limitations in the paper.
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What did chemists’ judgments have to do with citation counts?
In the studied papers, respondents’ estimates of which articles were highly cited correlated with actual citation counts better than their judgments of significance or sharing preferences did. Corresponding-author h-index had a stronger correlation with the actual article citation counts than any of the four survey-response categories. That is a comparison of how well these measures tracked citation accumulation in this particular sample—not evidence that h-index measures scientific significance. Borchardt et al. report the comparisons.
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The results also suggest that subdiscipline shaped what respondents noticed. Papers respondents considered highly cited or would share with other chemists came from their own subdiscipline 70% of the time; papers they judged significant came from their own subdiscipline 63% of the time. These are findings from this survey and paper set, not population-wide estimates for chemists. See the study’s results.
Why citations are not the same as significance
A citation count records accumulated references to a paper over a given period. It does not directly record whether chemists regard the work as important, whether it is useful to a colleague, or whether it matters to a broader public. Those questions can produce different answers because they concern different audiences and purposes.
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As study co-author Rachel Borchardt put it to Chemistry World, “There seems to be a disconnect between citation and actual humanly perceived significance.” Read the contemporaneous report.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe authors concluded that “peer judgements of importance and significance differ from metrics-based measurements,” and called for chemists to work with bibliometricians on measures that better capture opinions about research importance. They also acknowledge that neither metrics nor human judgments necessarily represent a paper’s full value to academia or society. The conclusion appears in the paper.
What the findings do—and do not—show
- Citation counts: a measure of citation activity for a paper, not a complete measure of its quality, significance, usefulness, or societal value.
- Respondents’ judgments: views about perceived importance or likely usefulness to particular audiences, not an objective ground truth.
- Author h-index: an author-level bibliometric indicator that tracked paper citation counts more closely than the survey categories in this study; the result does not establish it as a measure of significance.
The evidence is narrow: one issue of one journal, papers published in 2003, and a self-selected survey sample. The study is preliminary and also notes that authors classified papers’ subdisciplines, which could affect that analysis. Its results should not be generalized to every chemist, field, journal, or current publishing pattern. The authors discuss these limits.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to interpret a chemistry paper’s citation record
When using citation information to assess a paper, first ask what question the number can answer. A count can show how often a work has been cited within a defined database and time window. It cannot, by itself, establish why those citations occurred or whether the work is significant to a particular audience.
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- Keep the unit clear: a paper’s citation total and an author’s h-index describe different things.
- Keep the time window and database in view: citation totals accumulate, and the study itself recorded Web of Science counts at two different dates.
- Separate audiences: value to specialists, interest to colleagues outside a subdiscipline, and relevance to the wider public are distinct judgments.
- Use qualitative judgment alongside metrics when significance is the question; the study does not prescribe one universal assessment framework.
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