Recent analysis by bibliometricians highlights the most cited research papers, showing a dominance of work on artificial intelligence and scientific methods from the 21st century. Despite the focus on recent research, foundational studies from before 2000 remain influential. The research aims to identify the critical literature that shapes scientific fields, revealing the interconnectedness of contemporary studies and the legacy of earlier works. The research methodology involved aggregating citation data from multiple databases to discern influential papers.
The researchers found that popular twenty-first-century papers on topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), scientific software, and methods to improve the quality of research dominate today's reference lists.
Studying the cited references of a large collection of papers provides a foundation for finding the intellectual roots of a field, says Robin Haunschild.
This reveals the really important papers for a community, adds Lutz Bornmann, a sociologist of science.
To compile a list of the most-cited references in publications today, Nature took the median rankings across three databases.
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