Skip to main content

Letters

Excessive citation of a scientific article may not be a commendation, but rather a condemnation. An example is to be found in your "Hot Papers" section of the December 12, 1988, issue of The Scientist (page 13). The article by Guo, Langlois, and Goddard has been roundly criticized. Perhaps this accounts for the extensive citation. This phenomenon should be a well-recognized limitation of citation indexes. JAMES P. COLLMAN Professor of Chemistry Stanford University Stanford, Calif. 94305

Written byJames Collman
| 1 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
1:00

Excessive citation of a scientific article may not be a commendation, but rather a condemnation. An example is to be found in your "Hot Papers" section of the December 12, 1988, issue of The Scientist (page 13). The article by Guo, Langlois, and Goddard has been roundly criticized. Perhaps this accounts for the extensive citation. This phenomenon should be a well-recognized limitation of citation indexes.

JAMES P. COLLMAN
Professor of Chemistry
Stanford University
Stanford, Calif. 94305

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member?
Add The Scientist as a preferred source on Google

Add The Scientist as a preferred Google source to see more of our trusted coverage.

Meet the Author

Published In

Related articles background image
August 2026 Digest cover
August 2026

Epic Fail: Sea-Monkeys Sabotage Fieldwork

When Barry Hicks set out to photograph thrombolites, thousands of unexpected visitors photobombed his underwater images.

View this Issue
Advancing Respiratory Immunity Through Tissue-Resident Memory T Cell Research

Advancing Respiratory Immunity Through Tissue-Resident Memory T Cell Research

Miltenyi
Overcoming Immunotherapy Resistance in Liver Cancer

Overcoming Immunotherapy Resistance in Liver Cancer

Axion Biosystems
Optimizing NGS Library Preparation for Reliable Sequencing Data

Optimizing NGS Library Preparation for Reliable Sequencing Data

Covaris
Using TCR Repertoire Sequencing to Advance Immunology Research

Using TCR Repertoire Sequencing to Advance Immunology Research

Miltenyi

Products

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Launches European Newsletter Campaign with Exclusive Welcome Gifts

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Launches SuperNuclease ® Pro with Free Trial Program

Sino Biological Logo

Sino Biological Launches Precisely Characterized Full-Length p-Tau217 Protein to Advance Next-Generation Alzheimer’s Biomarker Assay Development

A photo of a scientist placing the Resipher device on a 96-well plate.

Resipher: Continuous Live-Cell Mitochondrial Respiration Monitoring in 96-Well Plates

Lucid Scientific logo