ACCOUNTING FOR INFLUENCE - ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

The scale and significance of acknowledgment behavior in ten highly ra nked sociology journals over a 10-year period is analyzed. Almost thre e quarters of all articles (N = 4200) included an acknowledgment state ment; more than half included an acknowledgment attesting to peer inte ractive communication. Functional and symbolic parallels between ackno wledgment and citation are discussed. Almost 5000 individuals were exp licitly acknowledged. Only a few were highly acknowledged. No correlat ion was found between frequency of acknowledgment and frequency of cit ation. Nor was there a correlation between frequency of acknowledgment and time-in-field as measured from date of terminal degree. The case for incorporating acknowledgment data into the academic audit process, along with more established bibliometric indicators, such as publicat ion and citation counts, is considered.