Citation measures Citation measures and impact within astronomy.

Frazer R Pearce takes a critical look at what citations say about the quality of research. By using the inbuilt citation counts from NASA's astrophysics data system (ADS) I derive how many citations refereed articles receive as a function of time since publication. After five years, one paper in a hundred has accumulated 91 or more citations, a figure which rises to 145 citations after 10 years. By adding up the number of citations active researchers have received over the past five years I have estimated their relative impact upon the field both for raw citations and citations weighted by the inverse of the number of authors per paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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