Explaining why some works may get highly cited

What is it about?

This study conceptualized that there are two types of factors that may influence whether a scholarly article would be highly cited later on: extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic factors characterize the underlying article in terms of connections to its external environment, whereas intrinsic factors focus on the core value of the article contributes or potentially contributes to our knowledge. Based on this conceptualization, a few metrics were defined and verified in a few case studies. These metrics and the procedure form the so-called Structural Variation Analysis (SVA). It is supported in CiteSpace, a freely accessible application for visual analytic studies of scientific literature.

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Why is it important?

The distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic factors for the understanding of scholarly impact is important. Extrinsic measures may provide useful insights. However, they have sever limitations. For example, it is hard to eliminate alternative explanations if a study is purely based on extrinsic factors. In contrast, intrinsic approaches focus specifically on the differences made by the underlying research and highlight how exactly the new work differs from the state of the art so far. The SVA framework is generic and one can apply the principles to concept networks, article networks, and author networks.