PATTERNS IN CITATIONS TO PAPERS BY BRITISH ASTRONOMERS

Numbers for annual citation rates to papers by Royal Astronomical Soci ety prize-winners, officers, and randomly-selected members are compile d and compared with corresponding data for American astronomers. The r ange is large (from I to 556 citations per year). Correlations exist w ith authors' ages, subdisciplines, and places of employment. The sizes and directions of these correlations are rather similar to the Americ an ones: it pays to be a mature, prize-winning theorist, working on co smology or high-energy astrophysics at a prestigious institution. The average citation rate for all astronomers and many subsets is somewhat smaller than the American one, in much the same ratio as, generically , papers in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society are less often cited than papers in the Astrophysical Journal. A table pre sents citation rates as a function of career length, subdiscipline, an d type of employment for the prize-winners, officers, and randomly sel ected members separately, and for most possible totals. Some demograph ic attributes of the sample are noted. For instance, stellar astronome rs outnumber those studying any other single sort of object, and optic al astronomers outnumber those associated with any other single wavele ngth range. In comparison with the American sample, there are many mor e people in the youngest group (I982-9I) and many fewer in the next-yo ungest (I975-8I). The similarities of patterns in British citation rat es to those in American ones suggest that meaningful comparisons can b e made among departments and other groups. For individuals, the caveat remains that citations are associated only with senior or sole author s of multi-authored papers, and comparisons should be made cautiously.