Citation Type Analysis on Humanity Literature of Taiwan

Using informetrics and citation analysis, the present study explores and compares characteristics and types of citations in the humanity journal articles that published in Taiwan. Research articles published in 2011, from top humanity journals, assessed by the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Science Council in Taiwan, were collected and analyzed. The analysis was done by structure of journal article and location of citations. In addition to citations appearing in the text, the phenomena of citation type will be compared and discussed in the latter part. The results of this study revealed articles of literature, history, philosophy and arts were mostly argumentative, while linguistic articles tended to comply with IMRAD (Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, And Discussion) formats. Introducing primary materials from original works, humanity scholars tended to cite for factual descriptions or to support authors’ perspectives. Secondary materials, such as later studies on the original works by other scholars, were seen the most in the disciplines of linguistics while the least in that of history. In general, the distribution of citation types is similar between articles in domestic and foreign journals; merely minor differences occurred among disciplines. While citing characteristics and information needs of humanities scholars revealed in this study may contribute to collection development of libraries or refinement of information services to researchers, suggestions based on analysis of research results may also serve as reference for standardization of writing and publication of journal articles in Taiwan. Aiming at further exploration of citations, this study is expected to provide a better understanding of the nature of citations and to serve as a foundation for future empirical studies.