Chinese-language articles are biased in citations

Shu, F. et Larivière, V. (2015). Chinese-language articles are biased in citations. Journal of informetrics, 9(3), 526-528.

In a paper published recently, Li, Qiao, Li, and Jin (2014) analyzed citations received by Chinese- and English-language articles published in Chinese-English bilingual journals indexed by Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). They concluded that Chinese-language articles were not biased in citations compared with English-language articles published in the same journal, as no significant difference was found in terms of the mean citations received between the set of Chinese-language articles and the set of English-language articles published in these journals. We disagree with their interpretation of the results: in order to investigate language bias in citations, one must take into account the well-known fact that scholars prefer to cite articles in their native language (Bookstein & Yitzhaki, 1999). This is also the case for Chinese researchers: Tang, Shapira, and Youtie (2015) revealed that a high rate of internal citations exists among Chinese researchers.

Therefore, to answer the question of whether Chinese-language articles are biased in citations compared with English-language articles, Chinese scholars’ contributions to the citations received should be excluded from consideration or be analyzed separately from those of researchers from other countries.

Ce contenu a été mis à jour le 5 novembre 2019 à 15 h 09 min.