Highly cited old papers and the reasons why they continue to be cited. Part II., The 1953 Watson and Crick article on the structure of DNA

摘要

Reports the results of a citation study on Watson and Crick's 1953 paper announcing the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The paper has been cited more than 2,000 times since 1961, and there is no sign of any obsolescence to this article. An analysis was undertaken of the journals in which the citations appeared, and of mistakes in the bibliographic citations provided by citing articles. Watson and Crick themselves have only cited their own paper twice since 1961. An analysis was also undertaken of the reasons why the paper was cited; 100 citing articles were identified and read. The reasons for citing were then categorised using the Oppenheim and Renn method. Compared to earlier studies, it was found that a greater proportion of citations were for historical reasons, a smaller proportion of citing articles were actively using the Watson and Crick article, and a similar, but low proportion were criticising the Watson and Crick article.