Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Research

Origin and funding of the most frequently cited papers in medicine: database analysis

BMJ 2006; 332 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38768.420139.80 (Published 04 May 2006) Cite this as: BMJ 2006;332:1061

Rapid Response:

On citing scientific papers properly

Madam,

In his delightful comments(1) on an earlier paper in the BMJ on
citation analysis (2) Dr Nilsson draws attention to the (probably) most
frequently cited paper in recent medical history(3). His suggestion for
young scientist who think of writing a successful paper (Give it an
appealing name, with implication of shortness, quickness, or simply that
it will make your life as a doctor easier) could perhaps be paraphrased
succinctly: Write a method paper! Method papers are routinely cited more
frequently than theoretical or empirical studies, in medical science and
other subjects, a phenomenon previously described (4).

Dr Nilsson relied on the excellent Web of Knowledge database (WoK)
(Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)) to calculate that the paper
by Folstein et al. (3) received some amazing 19,250 citations since 1977.

I would like to point out that this figure should be increased by at
least 500, this being the number of papers citing Folstein incorrectly.
Among incorrect references are 300+ from papers which get the page or
volume wrong (usually but not exclusively ‘198’ or ‘21’ respectively),
many which give an incorrect source journal (incl. suggestions that the
paper was published in JAMA) or identify Folstein’s paper as having been
published as late as 1997.

The WoK has a powerful ‘analyze’ facility which allows to identify
institutions which let, in this case, incorrect references slip through
their editing process. Each of these institutions has a least ten papers
with an incorrect reference to Folstein’s paper:
Univ Calif Los Angeles; Harvard Univ; Johns Hopkins Univ; Univ Cambridge;
Univ Pittsburgh; Australian Natl Univ; Univ Texas; Univ Washington; Univ
Toronto; Columbia Univ.

Among periodicals which have a least 10 papers with an incorrect
citation are:
Neurology; Journal of the American Geriatrics Society; International
Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry; Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive
Disorders; Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology; Archives
of Neurology; Aging & Mental Health; Aging Neuropsychology and
Cognition; European Journal of Neurology.

A further analysis identifying authors who cite the Folstein
incorrectly and later authors who then just copied the faulty reference
without going to the original publication (or at least checking the
reference on PubMed) would be possible.

Sadly, Nilsson’s reference will not add to the citation count for
Folstein’s paper, as references in BMJ’s Rapid Responses are not visible
on the Web of Knowledge. A variant of the FUTON Bias(5), perhaps?

Respectfully yours,

Reinhard Wentz

(1) http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/332/7549/1061#149065

(2) Patsopoulos NA, Ioannidis JP, Analatos AA. Origin and funding of the
most frequently cited papers in medicine: database analysis. BMJ
2006;332:1061-4.

(3) Folstein MF, Folstein SE, McHugh PR. "Mini-mental state". A practical
method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician.
J.Psychiatr.Res. 1975;12:189-98.

(4) Peritz BC.Are methodological papers more cited than theoretical or
empirical ones? The case of sociology. Scientometrics 1983; 5 :211-18

(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUTON_bias

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

13 November 2006
Reinhard Wentz
Retired
TW2 7PS