Document Type Profiles in Nature, Science, and PNAS: Journal and Country Level

Abstract Purpose In this contribution, we want to detect the document type profiles of the three prestigious journals Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS) with regard to two levels: journal and country. Design/methodology/approach Using relative values based on fractional counting, we investigate the distribution of publications across document types at both the journal and country level, and we use (cosine) document type profile similarity values to compare pairs of publication years within countries. Findings Nature and Science mainly publish Editorial Material, Article, News Item and Letter, whereas the publications of PNAS are heavily concentrated on Article. The shares of Article for Nature and Science are decreasing slightly from 1999 to 2014, while the corresponding shares of Editorial Material are increasing. Most studied countries focus on Article and Letter in Nature, but on Letter in Science and PNAS. The document type profiles of some of the studied countries change to a relatively large extent over publication years. Research limitations The main limitation of this research concerns the Web of Science classification of publications into document types. Since the analysis of the paper is based on document types of Web of Science, the classification in question is not free from errors, and the accuracy of the analysis might be affected. Practical implications Results show that Nature and Science are quite diversified with regard to document types. In bibliometric assessments, where publications in Nature and Science play a role, other document types than Article and Review might therefore be taken into account. Originality/value Results highlight the importance of other document types than Article and Review in Nature and Science. Large differences are also found when comparing the country document type profiles of the three journals with the corresponding profiles in all Web of Science journals.

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