# Growth in the number of references in engineering journal papers during the 1972-2013 period

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.4223 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1306.4223/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Jun 2013.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Why Did You Not Compare With That? Identifying Papers for Use as Baselines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08089/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The number of references per paper, perhaps the best single index of a journal's scholarliness, has been studied in different disciplines and periods. In this paper we present a four decade study of eight engineering journals. A data set of over 70000 references was generated after automatic data gathering and manual inspection for errors. Results show a significant increase in the number of references per paper, the average rises from 8 in 1972 to 25 in 2013. This growth presents an acceleration around the year 2000, consistent with a much easier access to search engines and documents produced by the generalization of the Internet.