Prospecting for Scientific 'Gems' with Google

Science is all about quantitative measurement, so it should come as no surprise that scientists have a long tradition of measuring their influence on each other. Traditionally, the most important measure of scientific impact has been the number of citations an article receives -- but this method’s chief virtue is its simplicity. The authors of any given paper are much more likely to reference recent works, so a result whose importance is not immediately recognized can end up with a much lower citation index than it deserves.

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All News summaries for May 03, 2006