- Email: [email protected]
Rejoinder to “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations”
Journal of Informetrics 9 (2015) 591
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Informetrics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/joi
Letter to the Editor Rejoinder to “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations” We have recently stated that Chinese-language articles were not biased in citations (Li, Qiao, Li, & Jin, 2014). Shu and Larivière (2015) used the same methodology and achieved the same results. But they suggested that to answer the question if Chinese-language articles are biased in citations compared with English-language articles, Chinese scholars’ contribution to the citations should be excluded from consideration. By doing so, they drew a completely opposite conclusion that Chinese-language articles were biased in citations. We thank them for their interest in our work and respond below. One point we should make clear at the start is the definition of “language bias in citations”. In our article (Li et al., 2014), we defined it as a phenomenon that in the case of other things being equal non-English language articles received significantly less citations compared with English ones. Based on this understanding and empirical study, we concluded that Chineselanguage articles were not biased in citations. We also observed that Chinese-language articles in Scopus mainly received citations from China. However, it is obvious that Shu and Larivière (2015) had different understanding of “language bias in citations”. We read them as stating “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations from non-Chinese scholars”, rather than “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations”. There are two reasons why we did not exclude Chinese scholars’ contribution to citations in our work. One is that as a general rule the measurement of non-English journals’ citation impact does not exclude citations from corresponding languages, for example, the impact factors in the Journal Citation Report. Only in this way can we ascribe low impact factors of Chinese-language journals to non-language reasons. The other is the difficulty to identify Chinese scholars. It is common to see Chinese faculties and students in universities or academic institutions in Northern America, Europe, etc., whereas in mainland China there are more and more foreign faculties and students. Therefore, it is not persuasive to identify Chinese scholars just by names or/and addresses. Unfortunately, we did not find the definition of “Chinese scholar” in Shu and Larivière’s work. We wonder how they solved this problem. Chinese-English bilingual journals which rarely published English-language articles should be excluded from the dataset. Because the publication of English-language articles in these journals was most likely attributed to their international visibility rather than quality. In addition, the editors of these journals have to keep a percentage of English-language articles, in order to retain Chinese-English bilingual. In this case, it is difficult to make fair comparisons between Chinese- and English-language articles in these journals. This is why Shu and Larivière’s work include 180 journal, more than the sample in our work. We accept the argument that compared to English-language articles Chinese-language articles are not biased in citations but are biased in citations from non-Chinese-language articles, based on the conclusions in our work and Shu and Larivière’s work. References Li, J., Qiao, L., Li, W., & Jin, Y. (2014). Chinese-language articles are not biased in citations: Evidences from Chinese-English bilingual journals in Scopus and Web of Science. Journal of Informetrics, 8(4), 912–916. Shu, F., & Larivière, V. (2015). Chinese-language articles are biased in citations. Journal of Informetrics, 9(3), 526–528.
Jiang Li ∗ Lili Qiao Wenyuze Li Yidan Jin Department of Information Resource Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Li)
9 May 2015 Available online 27 June 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2015.05.004 1751-1577/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Informetrics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/joi
Letter to the Editor Rejoinder to “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations” We have recently stated that Chinese-language articles were not biased in citations (Li, Qiao, Li, & Jin, 2014). Shu and Larivière (2015) used the same methodology and achieved the same results. But they suggested that to answer the question if Chinese-language articles are biased in citations compared with English-language articles, Chinese scholars’ contribution to the citations should be excluded from consideration. By doing so, they drew a completely opposite conclusion that Chinese-language articles were biased in citations. We thank them for their interest in our work and respond below. One point we should make clear at the start is the definition of “language bias in citations”. In our article (Li et al., 2014), we defined it as a phenomenon that in the case of other things being equal non-English language articles received significantly less citations compared with English ones. Based on this understanding and empirical study, we concluded that Chineselanguage articles were not biased in citations. We also observed that Chinese-language articles in Scopus mainly received citations from China. However, it is obvious that Shu and Larivière (2015) had different understanding of “language bias in citations”. We read them as stating “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations from non-Chinese scholars”, rather than “Chinese-language articles are biased in citations”. There are two reasons why we did not exclude Chinese scholars’ contribution to citations in our work. One is that as a general rule the measurement of non-English journals’ citation impact does not exclude citations from corresponding languages, for example, the impact factors in the Journal Citation Report. Only in this way can we ascribe low impact factors of Chinese-language journals to non-language reasons. The other is the difficulty to identify Chinese scholars. It is common to see Chinese faculties and students in universities or academic institutions in Northern America, Europe, etc., whereas in mainland China there are more and more foreign faculties and students. Therefore, it is not persuasive to identify Chinese scholars just by names or/and addresses. Unfortunately, we did not find the definition of “Chinese scholar” in Shu and Larivière’s work. We wonder how they solved this problem. Chinese-English bilingual journals which rarely published English-language articles should be excluded from the dataset. Because the publication of English-language articles in these journals was most likely attributed to their international visibility rather than quality. In addition, the editors of these journals have to keep a percentage of English-language articles, in order to retain Chinese-English bilingual. In this case, it is difficult to make fair comparisons between Chinese- and English-language articles in these journals. This is why Shu and Larivière’s work include 180 journal, more than the sample in our work. We accept the argument that compared to English-language articles Chinese-language articles are not biased in citations but are biased in citations from non-Chinese-language articles, based on the conclusions in our work and Shu and Larivière’s work. References Li, J., Qiao, L., Li, W., & Jin, Y. (2014). Chinese-language articles are not biased in citations: Evidences from Chinese-English bilingual journals in Scopus and Web of Science. Journal of Informetrics, 8(4), 912–916. Shu, F., & Larivière, V. (2015). Chinese-language articles are biased in citations. Journal of Informetrics, 9(3), 526–528.
Jiang Li ∗ Lili Qiao Wenyuze Li Yidan Jin Department of Information Resource Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Li)
9 May 2015 Available online 27 June 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2015.05.004 1751-1577/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.