It is very difficult to answer this question directly because the answer depends on a field of research and many other factors which are not always easy to quantify; a useful discussion is presented in:

“Towards a better list of citation superstars: compiling a multidisciplinary list of highly cited researchers”

https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0603024.pdf

It is very difficult to answer this question directly because the answer depends on a field of research and many other factors which are not always easy to quantify; a useful discussion is presented in:

“Towards a better list of citation superstars: compiling a multidisciplinary list of highly cited researchers”

https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0603024.pdf

An excellent Question that will attract many useful posts.

Any interpretation as to how useful Citations are is a matter of opinion.

Having said that, journals love Citations, impact factors, and journal h-indexes.

As posted on a related thread:

San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

General Recommendation

"Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist’s contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions."

https://sfdora.org/read/

Citations are widely regarded by academic researchers as indicative of impact, importance, significance, and possibly also quality.

Any citation that is irrelevant can be considered an overrated citation.

To Romeo Meštrović :

How do you determine "irrelevant", which is defined as "not directly related, connected, or pertinent to a topic"?

The word is easy to define, but not so easy to determine as it depends on interpretation., which is personal and subjective.

"How important are citations? Are they overrated?" -- Frank T. Edelmann asks. Let me start by saying that citations are now more valued than they were, say, a couple or even many years ago, where there was no counting citations system. The fact that citations are now more valued than they were has much to due with the "perish or publish" policy -- the more one publishes and gets citations, the more one is entitled to be promoted, to get funding, to publish new papers, to get more funding, and so forth in an kind of infinite regress.

But the importance of citations depends on a plethora of reasons. In what follows I refer to some to them:

(1) Citations tend be be more valued in a research-oriented university than in a teaching-oriented university;

(2) Citations tend to be more valued by academics who want, for example, to get tenure and be promoted the rank order of Associate Professor or Full Professor than by those who are already retired.

(3) Citations tend to be more valued in certain countries than in another ones. I do mention names to avoid any type of discrimination. (4) Citations tend to be more valued when are cited in Journals with high impact

factor than a low one.

(5) Citations tend to to be more valued in certain domains of knowledge than in other ones.

(6) There are many researchers that value more the immediate impact of their published research on the solution of, say, practical problems than on the number of citations the focal research may get

(7) .......

(8) etc., etc,.etc.,

To sum up, the importance of citations varies as function of many variables and there is no formula to assess its importance to the quality of published research Also, its importance may be overrated by some people or underrated by other ones. When I publish/have published papers what matters/mattered me most is (was) to divulge my research findings in acclaimed journals. Citations can happen (or nor), and this is not by business. It is worth mentioning , however, that the majority of my papers were published when there was not yet any counting citations system.

Michael John McAleer (posted 40 minutes ago): ”How do you determine "irrelevant", which is defined as "not directly related, connected, or pertinent to a topic?"

A very intriguing question. Based on my experience on writing my papers and reading many papers in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, it shows that in the strict sense, the term "irrelevant citation" can be considered any citation that can be removed from the list of references in the paper, while the paper can remain unchanged.

Is there any issue of fairness relating to citation count?

This paper in Plos One is published as Open access on 18th September https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0238339 and cited my preprint.

The link is: https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202003.0366/v2 (also in Researchgate https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340552840_Atmospheric_Variables_and_Additional_Urgent_Solutions_for_Combating_COVID-19).

But it is not getting citation counts in google scholar, Researchgate or anywhere. I asked Plos One, Preprints.org and no one can tell the exact reason. With this paper of mine, few other citations are also missing.

Based on my past experience, I was wondering whether there are certain optimisation policy or technique where mainstream science or certain areas of science are promoted heavily; whereas other views are suppressed.

You cannot allude to being a scholarly research if you fail to cite. All good research requires evidence-based research and without it, your writing is purposeless.

In the last years, I have been involved in medical projects and I noticed that research is short lived, in that you will not see too old citations. Things evolve fast, new ideas and research subject immerge and take over, etc. In particular, one's citations, if any, will be within 5 years.

George,

Dissertations require research not to be older than 5 years. In other words, research is evolving, not short-lived, but more current.

It is obvious that in most articles from all scientific areas (fields), in their Introductory Sections and Literature Reviews often appear a large number of irrelevant citations.

Who defines "obvious" and "irrelevant"?

With respect, I am unable to agree with your sweeping statement that lacks any credible evidence.

The same goes for post of 16 hours ago in which you state:

"the term "irrelevant citation" can be considered any citation that can be removed from the list of references in the paper, while the paper can remain unchanged."

That is yet another personal opinion, not a scientific statement backed by factual evidence.

If in the Introduction (or/and in the Literature Review) of a published paper it is written: "See the papers [1] - [20], [23] - [39],… ", is it very suspicious or even obvious (evident) that many of these cited references are irrelevant?

Quotations are overestimated when they are multiplied "artfully" thanks to agreements between "authors", which almost always arise within the same Faculty or between "compliant" university professors / researchers.

The phenomenon is well known.

In all other cases, there is no overestimation.

To Gioacchino de Candia:

I agree. I would just like to expand your phrase "... within the same Faculty..." with "and within different faculties and universities".

Dear Michael John McAleer and Readers,

”Who defines "obvious" and "irrelevant"?”

The problem of “irrelevant citations” is discussed in the following highly recommended paper

Article Irrelevant citations in scientific literature

"Irrelevant citations in scientific literature" has been cited once in RG.

To Romeo Meštrović :

You continue to present your personal opinions about irrelevant references, but fail to provide any evidence.

"very suspicious or even obvious (evident)" are your opinions, not evidence.

Well this is getting interesting but the bottom line is citations do matter and are an indicator that your work is having an influence. Publishing research that never gets cited or referenced may get you promoted but that does not make it relevant

Interesting indicator but not always efficient to measure the quantity article by only citation.

Citation is important and not overated. Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves three purposes: It gives proper credit to the authors of the words or ideas that you incorporated into your paper. It allows those who are reading your work to locate your sources, in order to learn more about the ideas that you include in your paper. https://guides.library.unk.edu/c.php?g=710678&p=5051044

Authors with high number of citations are considered to have made more impacts globally than those with lower number of citations

Interesting question that provoked several useful information.

Citations are a valuable measure of how research/field is growing and developing.

That said, we are developing, or are an 'audit society' where we are screened and monitored, why and who benefits is suspect.

Inequalities increasing, ranking measures created incessantly. We are living in a hunger games mentality ...

Alas, we also have mindsets, the UK Research Excellence Framework, REF, required by government to help guide research funding to universities.

Dean's colloborate on journal ranking lists and staff advised to submit to certain journals to help institution attain a high REF evaluation. Subject areas create Dean's list which ranks journals in relation to JIF

As a consequence many UK academics internalised this logic, and ongoing assessment of journals has led to limiting journals ranked as high grade. Our academic labour is controlled, and driven by attaining high REF score as this means more money and status, for the university, and departments in Universities

The Australian Dean's ABDC list in economics and cognate disciplines seems to be highly correlated with the journals in which the Deans have published in the past, including a number of local journals.

Typical. We are classifying and segmenting in order to exclude. Sigh....🙁☹️

This depends entirely on your project. Something like science depending on an experiment will have few citations because all that is pertinent is the most up-to-date research. Something like social psychology or history may have a tonne of citations depending on the scope of the research question. I think this says something about defining the research question very specifically and setting it within the narrowest clearest terms you need unless you intend your project to be scopey of course. This research asks the question that.... this project investigates that...this project aims to compare this and that...defining the scope and limits will dictate how many citations, and, they need to be absolutely pertinent not broader than required. Specificity is the word, there may not be much written on your topic which you will show in the lit review, I searched this data base that data base and this archive and all i found was this...

Citations are a dollar currency. Some have gone mad and tripled publications, others in social science are teaming up so 4-5 scholars share papers to enhance citations. As more opportunities to publish are via OA, quite rightly as knowledge sharing is important foundation in SDGs in order to promote equal opportunity etc, yet at the same time their is a scaling process, drawing boundaries that often privilege the Global North. Look at how many journals have been set up by Chinese scholars/institutions, and who are aiming to attain words, or Scopus ranking.

It many fields the book has lost value, it is journals. But as we know the Beal's list highlighted alot of dodgy journals, and many have been brought to heel or vanish.

The interesting thing for me is that some have gone mad for citations and journal rankings....I find this weird , and if your origin is working class you know why. Why play a game of rank and file...I'm not saying don't value good scholarship. I'm saying let's all have a little humility. Education is about social upgrading, and hopefully spreading it around. All this wallowing sometimes It makes me think of Schindlers List and Ralph Fiennes shoots anyone from the top of the hill near the camp...it's just for the sake of power.....and wallowing in power is the game of the elite in many institutions

Citations are important to improvement your skills between your scientific area.

i think I misunderstood the question. You meant having your own work cited is that right? That, rather than referencing other peoples work, I apologise.

Without dated citations (5 years or less) it is the only way to obtain evidence-based research. It is key to conducting all research.

Citations and function thereof, such as the journal impact factor and the h-index for journals and academics, are key indicators of impact, significance, importance, and/or quality of academic publications.

It's about the politics of journal ranking, who publishes where and why..

.we all want evaluation and encouragement with our scholarship. Who is controlling the agenda...

Dear Frank T. Edelmann These days, number of citations is considered the main quality measure for researchers and journals as well. Therefore, we have to care about this issue.

The various comments on citation of research paper are significant and valuable suggesting that the citations are indication of originality and new contribution in the area of the subject-Matter of happiness if not pride.

Interesting question

There is no perfect measure of the influence, impact, importance and/or quality of published papers in reputable journals, but Citations are a standard metric.

Absolutely agree with you Prof Michael. There is no criteria. It's quality and novelty of the work. Its great honour that a paper /s are cited any number of times one of my paper published in 1968 has been cited 60 times while others few to 10 "times. One need not beg as tutors to cite our work. Its stupid to have a question like this for discussion.!!!!!!

To Bir Bahadur :

I am glad we are on the same page.

Stay safe and well.

Earlier too we were. So happy dear friend you are so kind to remember me God Bless you and Happy 2021 in another 6 hours IST

Dear readers of this thread, I wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year 2021. Please stay safe and healthy!

Thanks Prof. Frank T. Edelmann nk, and Happy New Year to everyone that have participated in the discuss and comments here. I would like to congratulate you (and me) for making it through a year that has been tough, educating & challenging on all fronts. May we have a peaceful, fruitful, fulfilling & a successful 2021.

Citations are what they are, namely they are widely regarded as a useful, albeit far from perfect, measure of scientific impact, importance, influence, and/or quality of academic journal publications.

I agree with Dr China and several earlier comments on the impact and importance . The point raised Dr. Korma about colourful 3D images is necessary in the digital age.. NOT ALL DO. ITS IS THOUGH FANCY BUT TO CONDEMN IS OUTRAGEOUS AND NOT DESIRABLE.

Sorry for mistake . Its not me Google creates mistake.

Nothing beats Citations as a valid measure of impact, importance, significance and/or quality of academic Publications.

Glad my old friend you. made the cut and I love your comment , yes indeed citations is index of ones quality publications. All these were not therein the past like Darwin or Newton as the science has evolved over centuries the citations has been used as yardstick. and I think the Nobel foundation uses this.

Dear Michael John McAleer "Nothing beats Citations as a valid measure of impact, importance, significance and/or quality of academic Publications." I fully agree with you in this point. A citation means that your work is relevant to other peoples research (although it does not always mean that researchers who cite your work have read it in full...). In any case citations are much more significant than things like reads, recommendations, likes etc.

To Frank T. Edelmann :

We are on the same side of the fence on this issue, as well as on many others.

Citations need not be favourable as the citing paper might be ritial, but that does not necessarily detract from "relevance, impact, importance, significance and/or quality".

We are on the same page and same side thinking right.

In principle, citations should reflect continuity, be a sign of public recognition of previous works. The citation chain should ideally lead to the original text "that initiated it". With this approach, the totality of citations is knowledge, the quintessence of what has been done. But in practice (as always), citations have become an instrument of competition and measurement of activity (it is far from only scientific one). It is not for nothing that in Russia there is an phrase: "Well, they started to compare by Hirshes again" (there is an obscene subtext in the original). When evaluating citations in new articles, one can easily notice "administrative", "friendly", "compatriot", etc. ones. If I see that the list of citations contains such of only one scientific school, country, or even one author, I usually don't read this article. Even articles like "Aristotle and I" are much interesting...

Citations may be the most widely used measure of importance, impact, influence, significance and/or quality, but papers should always be read and understood.

You are right. Ok people working in the concerned area will and understand and if useful and related their work the recommend and cite.

Others of peripheral or unrelated don't read and obviously don't cite or recommend.

Citations are definitely the important aspect of any published study. But it is not always that the quality of article is dependent on the number of Citations. Open published article always has more Citations as compared to article which does not have open access

The usefulness and relevance of Citations depends on the discipline.

To begin with, let me quote Greene NM: “Measuring something as subjective as the quality of the written word is as fraught with dangers as attempting to measure beauty.”

Having said that, number of citations remains a valid measure of quality, impact and significance of a research paper. Yes, there are many criticisms for using this measure but due to lack of any better measure, we will have to continue usage of number of citations only. Each paper probably has its relevance to the researchers who published it but its relevance to the academic community at large can currently measured by the number of citations only, though papers on controversial topics will continue to have high number of citations.

Thanks for the comments. I am sure, you must have gone through my Comment's and your comments are compatible. SCIENCE HAS ADVANCED AND THE CITATION METHOD WHICH WAS NON EXISTING IN THE PAST IS A RECENT INNOVATION AND IS UNIVERSAL YARDSTICK TO HONOUR THE RESEARCH WORKER. .

answer depends on a field of research and many other factors which are not always easy to quantify

We follow the quotes of Einstein and Hawkings etc. since they were great researchers with quality work so citations shows the 'quality' of a researchers writing/work in publications etc.

Currently, citations are the direct measure of how the work is readable and impactful. Even this system has some limitations, but it is a real and direct indicator.

Early career academics should concentrate on publishing quality papers in leading journals that will attract citations in time.

Established academics can do whatever they want, but tend to concentrate on writing quality papers that will attract citations.

Good suggestions to young buddies.

I dont believe citation count entirely measures the quality of a researcher/research. As you mentioned, that today, technological platforms make it easier to cite, compared to 50 years ago. Hence perhaps citation count is dependent on such factors.

Citations actually measure how many people have seen our work rather than a measure of the quality of the paper. Nowadays with the increased emphasis on including large number of references, people usually cite anything that is relevant to a specific area of work, instead of the fact that the cited paper actually proposes some innovative research solutions.

This is untrue, The citation is done by researchers in the area in which the author worked and interested by the recommender. Why will anybody see the work and blindly? recommend. There is no reality or basis in the above comment

Citation tell us application of you work to your field

Higher Education Institutions are rated locally and globally on citations of researcher belonging to that institution so citations are not overrated.

For most researchers and scientists, citations are important primarily in the context of collecting scientific achievements, which is periodically assessed by an affiliated institution.

Regards,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

citations are important because research work is connected and a new one built on previous, this help researchers to know more with an update in their specific fields and filling gaps by doing more research.

Received: 22 November 2017 | Revised: 3 September 2018 | Accepted: 24 September 2018 DOI: 10.1111/pbr.12656, Plant Breeding Pigeonpea improvement: An amalgam of breeding and genomic research Sameer Kumar Chanda Venkata1 | Ganga Rao Nadigatla Veera Prabha Rama1 | Rachit K. Saxena1 | Kulbhushan Saxena1 | Hari D. Upadhyaya1 | Moses Siambi1 | Said N. Silim2 | Kothapally Narasimha Reddy1 | Anupama J. Hingane1 | Mamta Sharma1 | Shivali Sharma1 | Stephen Dominic Lyimo3 | Rose Ubwe3 | Meshack Makenge4 | Kananji Gad5 | Paul Kiprotich Kimurto6 | Manuel Amane7 | Kennedy Kanenga8 | Yuventino Obong9 | Emanuel Monyo1 | Chris Ojiewo1 | Nagesh Kumar Mallela Venkata10 | Jaganmohan Polineni Rao10 | Prashanthi Lakkireddy11 | Sudhakar Chourat10 | Indraprakash Singh12 | Sobhan Sajja1 | Shruthi Hirikara Beliappa1 | Rajeev K. Varshney1. Here is a paper with 40 and more authors, What is your reaction, Who is the real authors. My intention is not to comment on the veracity but there is often a question about who is the real authors and citations too !!!!!

Dear Bir Bahadur "Here is a paper with 40 and more authors, What is your reaction, Who is the real authors." In my opinion this is not a big problem. I think that with 40 authors you can still say who did what. As you can see from the numbers 1-12 this was a collaboration of 12 different institutions. In such a case the list of authors can easily become very long. In this context please see this useful article entitled

Authorship and Team Science

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2667044

Citations are always important as a valid and widely-used measure of impact, influence, significance and/ or quality, though opinions regarding the above can and do vary.

I agree with Michael John McAleer when he says "Citations are always important as a valid and widely-used measure of impact, influence, significance and/ or quality." What else should one use as a suitable measure? Most other measures like reads, likes, recommendations etc. are unsuitable. In this context please see this useful article entitled

Citations, Citation Indicators, and Research Quality: An Overview of Basic Concepts and Theories

Article Citations, Citation Indicators, and Research Quality: An Ove...

The authors e.g. state that "We conclude that citations reflect—with important limitations—aspects related to scientific impact and relevance, but there is no evidence that citations reflect other key dimensions of research quality. There is no obvious road to better handle the tension between administrative needs for simple measures and more easy evaluation methods and researchers’ request for fair and comprehensive assessments of scientific quality."

In the end, university officials want numbers....😎

I totally agree with you Dr. Michael. Its has been very useful discussion with overwhelming positive comments.

Citation counts are not and cannot be overrated as long as they are a component of Impact Factor calculations/determinations for Journals by Clarivate analytics JCR. World ranking of universities by Times Higher Education (THE) also considers citation counts a very significant component of raking criteria. "This year’s ranking analyzed more than 80 million citations across over 13 million research publications and included survey responses from 22,000 scholars globally". That is how important citations are. Not just for the author, or the journal, or the institution but the country and continent too. It is of national, continental and global interest. A lot depends on it. It cannot be overrated. The only problem is who cites what? If you understand what I mean, that is.

Citations are important! They may reflect scientific contribution and impact of your scholar work.

@Bir , the example you gave points to "gifting authorship". I believe if a group or department made a significant contribution, like in a medical or animal breeding research, the recognized group/department should be the author(and acknowledged so as just an author), while members benefiting (as contributors of different part, or level) will be secondary, (expanded information).

Its difficult sharing or attaching equal impact rating on each, and we know "pooled factors" will push the dissemination, of which many author stands obscured, even when such paper is cited. It will be clear when impacts is being measure, individual and as a member of a group/special research body.

We must make exception and rules about authorship, and more than three(3) contributing researchers... a researcher can consult others and acknowledged them , not as author but it seems people gifts respected colleagues or count on their names to generate wider readership. Seperate these levels of collaboration, perhabs institution/body/technical-research team clearly indicated as the author. New index, as research group/body productivity measure should be created, and weighted value extended in a modified H-index calculation.

I understand when there are so many authors for a paper of 6 or 8 pages, one naturally gets curious but I would not use the word gifting authorship as to who contributed what and how much is the fundamental problem?

Without Citations, there would be no journal impact factors or h-indexes for journals and individual academics, which should be compared only within, and not across, disciplines.

We can highlight some points that could reflect the importance of citations such as "scientific contribution", "h-indexes for researchers", and "impact factors for journals"

Dear Bir Bahadur "I understand when there are so many authors for a paper of 6 or 8 pages, one naturally gets curious but I would not use the word gifting authorship as to who contributed what and how much is the fundamental problem?" In our field of research, the most important and significant findings are often reported in Communications / Short Communications. In the most renowned journals these Communications are restricted to e.g. 4 pages. Despite this, they can be multiple-author papers without any "gift authorship". Thus at least in our discipline the length of a research article is absolutely unrelated to its quality.

I agree with you but instead of short communication, they make a full paper so much space is gone for the names and their affiliations.

I have seen papers with 60 authors also, So the situation is the same as 40 or 60

Dear Bir Bahadur "I agree with you but instead of short communication, they make a full paper so much space is gone for the names and their affiliations.": At least in our discipline, chemistry, this is not generally a good idea. There are some high-IF chemical journals which publish Communications only, but no full papers. Prominent exampled are "Angewandte Chemie International Edition" (Impact Factor 12.959 (2019)) and "Chemical Communications" (Impact factor: 5.996).

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Journals/JournalIssues/cc#!recentarticles&adv

I agree that citations count is not the only indicator of paper significance. We did research for evaluation of our practice, new experience to get the results that could help to detect the pitfalls and improve the quality of management. For example we have a new program for certain type of disease, we conduct studies to get the results and compare our local results with the international standards. This paper could have few citations but it have a great impact on our practice and improving quality of our institute which will help the local community and this is the significance of the research

As your scientific audience interested in the subject increases your citation will improve. One cannot be ambitious overnight to have high citation, It takes years, For instance the paper I published in 1968 is more recognized as seminal and have more citations about 65. To expect high citation immediately after the publication is not good but greed.

To assess science and scientists, heuristics have always been used. Citation numbers are yet another way for research to be judged. But no one would claim that they are a perfect and objective means of measuring the quality of science. All function against this measure as a quality metric, because of the cliquiness and policies that may be involved in the drawing up of a reference list, the inevitably common citations for data sets that do not contain a new insight, and the need to refer to papers to disprove them. The system, however, is immensely practical and quite effective.

Source: The importance of being cited. Nature Geosci 1, 563 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo305

Academic researchers who are highly regarded by their peers in any discipline rely on Citations and the associated h-index.

You are right Dr. Micheal. I citation an I mentioned is yardstick or unit of quality which an author refers that paper and takes ides and in his paper highlights the work discusses to generally his finding with the paper cited, The author subsequently attaches his full paper to enable you to watch/read and study, Its indeed fool proof method and highly recommend its usage to judge the quality@ of the research paper, Its wrong indeed to devalue and write adverse remarks on citations,

Citations are a valid and widely-used measure of several aspects related to published research.

Dear All, personally I'm still wondering how important citations for an individual researcher really are, and: Important for what? When young researchers apply at our institution e.g. for a professorship, the commission counts the research papers in international, peer-reviewed journals, but I can't recall a case where the citation count was also considered. Thus I think that citation could be of some importance for young researchers in the process of job application, promotion etc. However, what is the "importance" of citations for an established / senior scientist? When I applied for research grants from our national science foundation in Germany (DFG) I was only asked to list my five most significant papers. Again, nobody cared about the citations. So, what is their real importance?