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Analytical Literature: Quality vs. Quantity
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Dear Sir: Previously we showed that the literature of analytical chemistry follows an exponential growth law with a doubling time (d) of about 13 years (1 ). But does such a rate really reflect growth of analytical knowl edge? It would, provided two assump tions are correct: 1) all knowledge ob tained by analytical researchers is in cluded in the literature, and 2) every paper contains either an equal or known proportion of this knowledge. Obviously neither is true; indeed, growth of analytical knowledge (a rather abstract concept) is different from growth of its literature. Moravcsik (2) distinguishes three relevant quantities when studying growth of science: scientific activity, scientific productivity, and scientific progress. These he illustrates by anal ogy. A man desires to go from one place in a dense forest to another five miles away. Activity corresponds to the amount of work done, for example, thrashing about in the undergrowth, blazing trails, exploring, etc. Produc tivity corresponds to the amount by which, as a result of all these activi ties, he advances toward his goal. Progress then is the ratio of produc tivity to the total task. Scientific activity is concerned with the consumption of input resources and is related to factors such as num ber of scientists involved and research expenditures. Scientific productivity refers to the extent to which this con sumption of resources creates a body of scientific results, which usually ap pear as published research communi cations. Scientific progress refers to the extent to which scientific activ ity—measured through scientific pro ductivity—actually results in substan tive contributions to scientific knowl edge. One wonders though if the ana lytical literature is evolving in the di rection of the dinosaur, becoming ever larger in size but smaller in brain. The total size has been increasing expo nentially, but the relative change in quality remains unknown. Rescher (3) defines a quantity, λ, such that in a total population of pa pers at time t,p(t) there will be [ρ(£)] λ publications at each λ level, as follows: λ = 1, at least routine; λ = 0.75, at least significant; λ = 0.50, at least important; λ = 0.25, at least very important. If one now assumes (op timistically) that anything published
132 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 55, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 1983
is at least routine and considers the size of the total analytical literature up to 1970 to be about 300 000 publi cations (1 ), there would be in these four categories 300 000; 12 800; 550; and 23 publications, respectively. The literature of λ quality grows with a doubling time of d/λ. With d for world analytical literature at 13 years (1), the corresponding doubling times for the last three λ levels are 17.3, 26, and 52 years respectively. The exponential increase in overall literature consists not just of useless verbiage, but also of useful and neces sary input for genuine advancement. Prom the above treatment one might conclude that publications containing significant new analytical ideas, re sults, applications, and systematizations make up only a tiny fraction of the total literature with a rather slow growth rate. This poses a serious ques tion: Does the bulk of publications serve a scientifically useful purpose? Admittedly these publications repre sent activity, but much of it may be misdirected in that confusion results and communication channels are clogged. Perhaps it should be thought of as noise, always present but hope fully minimized. Empirical investigations of the quality of analytical literature—or for that matter on the literature of any field—are practically nonexistent. This is rather disturbing considering the importance of quantitative ap proaches to the growth of knowledge. Unfortunately such studies are both time-consuming and demanding. Bet ter compilations of statistics on the literature of analytical chemistry and informed critical assessments and re finements of present scientometric techniques are needed so that valid evaluations of analytical knowledge and growth may be obtained. References (1) Braun, T.; Bujdoso, E. CRC Critical Reviews in Analytical Chemistry 1982, 13 223 (2) Moravcsik, J. Res. Policy 1973, 2, 268. (3) Rescher, N. "Scientific Progress"; Uni versity of Pittsburgh Press: Pittsburgh, 1978. T. Braun Institute of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry L. Eotvos University, P.O. Box 123 1443 Budapest, Hungary
