A cognitive model of document use during a research project. Study II. Decisions at the reading and citing stages

This article reports on the follow-up study of a two-part project designed to study the decision-making process underlying how academic researchers se lect documents retrieved from online databases, consult or read, and cite d ocuments during a research project. The participants are 15 of the 25 agric ultural economics users who participated in the original study of document- selection conducted in 1992. They were interviewed about subsequent decisio ns on documents considered relevant and selected in 1992, as well as docume nts cited in their written products but not in the original searches. Of pa rticular interest in this article are the decision criteria and rules they apply to documents as they progress through the project. The first study in 1992 emphasized the selection processes and resulted in a document selecti on model; the 1995 study concentrates on the reading and citing decisions. The model derived from this project shows document use as a decision-making process with decisions occurring at three points or stages during a resear ch project: selecting, reading, and citing. It is an expansion of the docum ent selection model developed in the 1992 study, identifies more criteria, and clarifies the criteria and rules that are in use at each stage. The fol low-up study not only found that all but one of the criteria identified in selection re-occur in connection with reading and citing decisions, but als o identified 14 new criteria. It also found that decision rules applied in selection decisions are applied throughout the project.