names there may still be considerable numbers of false hits, and the false hits
have to be removed manually, with a definite risk of selecting wrong citations.
In Batia Laufer’s case the h-index for GS is the same as for PoP, but there
may be differences. According to Harzing (2011: 46) such differences are the
result of differences in algorithms used by the two systems (advanced scholar
search versus standard scholar search). When there was a difference in h-indices
between PoP and GS, the highest was used in the analyses of the present
project.
9.3 Number of citations as an indicator
The h-index does not provide information on how often a publication has
been cited. Some researchers have one or two very frequently cited pub-
lications and a larger series of less frequently cited ones. Examples in our
database are Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada, who have a very high citation
score for their widely used bookHow Languages are Learnedbut lower ones
for subsequent publications. The same holds for Rosamond Mitchell and
Florence Myles and their book on theories of second language acquisition.
For such books, that have seen various editions over time, the total number
of citations is used, irrespective of the edition. In order to do justice to those
frequently cited publications, I decided to include for each author the sum
of the citation scores of the three most cited publications.
9.4 A database of applied linguists and their citations
An Excel database was set up in which the h-index and the citation scores
for the three most cited publications were included for the 98 applied lin-
guists of whom these data could be used in this study. In addition, for each
of these publications information was added on when it was published,
whether it was single- or multi-authored, a journal article, book chapter or
book, and whether it was an overview study or a data based study.
The database allowed me tofind answers to the following questions:
How are the citations distributed over time?
Are there differences in terms of citations between journal articles, book
chapters and books?
Are there differences in terms of citations between overview studies
versus data based studies?
Are there differences in terms of citation between single-authored
publications and multi-authored publications?
The main statistics for the h-indices and number citations are summarized
in Table 9.3.
The data in Table 9.3 show that there is substantial variation in both the
h-values and total citations. The h-values show a normal distribution with
110 The citation game