Citing the innovative work of the original inventors: An analysis of citations to prior clinical trials

Introduction. The massive growth of the scientific literature can result in an abundancy of relevant studies when an author wants to substantiate a claim. References and citations are fundamental bibliometric artefacts yet little guidance is offered to authors regarding the selection between equally relevant references. Only rules of thumb exist, and the present paper provides an overview of the scarce publications within the area. A well-known rule of thumb is to cite seminal work.
Method. The present study aims to analyse the extent to which seminal papers are being cited more or less than more recent studies, when authors cite previous, similar studies. Cohorts of studies addressing the same research question form the data set of the analysis. The data is visualised and analysed using statistical analyses and charts.
Results. The results show that some narrow research questions are addressed by as much as 50 or 100 studies. The results also show that the more citable studies, the smaller the ratio of cited to non-cited studies.
Conclusion. There does not seem to be a general tendency towards older or more recent studies being cited more. The more citable studies the more evenly distributed the share of citations seems to be. The implications for bibliometrics are discussed.