SECONDARY AND TERTIARY CITING - A STUDY OF REFERENCING BEHAVIOR IN THE LITERATURE OF CITATION ANALYSIS DERIVING FROM THE ORTEGA HYPOTHESIS OF COLE AND COLE

This study examines a complex network of documents and citations relat ing to the literature of the Ortega Hypothesis (as defined by Jonathan R. Cole and Stephen Cole), demonstrating the tenacity of errors in de tails of and meaning attributed to individual citations. These errors provide evidence that secondary and tertiary citing occurs in the lite rature that assesses individual influence through the use of citations . Secondary and tertiary citing is defined as the inclusion of a citat ion in a reference list without examining the document being cited. Th e authors suggest that, in the absence of error, it is difficult to de termine the amount of secondary and tertiary citing considered normati ve. Therefore, to increase understanding of the relationship between c itations and patterns of influence, it is recommended that large-scale studies examine additional instances of citation error.