# Frequently Co-cited Publications: Features and Kinetics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.04793 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.04793/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 10 May 2020.

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

- [CoCon: A Data Set on Combined Contextualized Research Artifact Use](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15193/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Co-citation measurements can reveal the extent to which a concept representing a novel combination of existing ideas evolves towards a specialty. The strength of co-citation is represented by its frequency, which accumulates over time. Of interest is whether underlying features associated with the strength of co-citation can be identified. We use the proximal citation network for a given pair of articles (x, y) to compute theta, an a priori estimate of the probability of co-citation between x and y, prior to their first co-citation.Thus, low values for theta reflect pairs of articles for which co-citation is presumed less likely. We observe that co-citation frequencies are a composite of power-law and lognormal distributions, and that very high co-citation frequencies are more likely to be composed of pairs with low values of theta, reflecting the impact of a novel combination of ideas. Furthermore, we note that the occurrence of a direct citation between two members of a co-cited pair increases with co-citation frequency. Finally, we identify cases of frequently co-cited publications that accumulate co-citations after an extended period of dormancy.