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What Do Chemists Cite? A Five-Year Analysis Of References Cited In American Chemical Society Journal Articles., Lisa Madeleine Rose-Wiles, Cecilia Marzabadi

Library Publications

This study analyzes references cited by articles published in ten American Chemical Society journals between 2011 and 2015. The median age of references was 6 years. On average, 44% of the references were five years old or younger, and only 11% were more than 20 years old. There appears to be a modest increase in references to older sources, possibly due to the increased availability of older articles online. References tended to be concentrated on a small core of journals. Overall, 20% of the journals cited accounted for 80% of the references. However, there was considerable variation among subdisciplines.