Enriched Cited References - Citation Function Class

Some Web of Science Core Collection articles have enriched the cited references with additional context that is designed to capture the author’s intent when citing references in the body of their article including:

  • how many times a reference was cited within this article so that you know how impactful it was to the author

  • what references are cited in proximity so that you know which references are most related

  • where in the body of the article it was cited so that you know why the reference might have been cited (ie, references from the introduction or beginning of an article are foundational articles whereas references from the material and methods section may related to how the experiment was structured).

Enriched Cited References are categorized in one of five "Function Classes," which serve to

describe the context for a given citation 

  • Background
  • Basis/Use
  • Support
  • Differ
  • Discuss

Background Function Class

Function Notes:

  • Serves as pertinent research that has been previously published
  • Orients the current study within a scholarly area
  • May be perfunctory or influential to the citing paper
  • Often found in Introduction section but not exclusively there

These in-text citations are usually the most common found in a citing paper. The associated sentences or statements may be presented as general knowledge without explicit mention at all to the study or studies being cited. The Background function class may also serve as reason for a decision made by the researchers in the study, to support a methodological direction without necessarily serving a Basis/Use function.

Examples:

(connected citation in bold)

"Recent studies identified Wee1 as a potential molecular target in cancer cells and the selective small molecule Wee1-inhibitor MK-1775 demonstrated promising results in cancer cells with enhanced levels of Wee1 (96-98)."

"It is well-known that the types of the solvent species are the concentration of salts in the electrolyte can alter the practical redox voltage displayed for p-type ROM electrodes. [19, 21, 22]"

"The drug also reduces catecholamine secretion, thereby reducing stress and leading to a modest (10-20) reduction in heart rate and blood pressure, which may be particularly beneficial in patients with cardiovascular disease. (7) Unlike midazolam, dexmedetomidine does not affect the ventilatory response to carbon dioxide."

Basis/Use Function Class

Function Notes:

  • Serve to report the data sets, methods, concepts, or even software that the author is using in the current study
  • Often found in Materials & Methods section but not exclusively there

Ideally, the in-text citations that fall into this class would demonstrate a clear indication of use or basis by the authors. Not all cases are as clear, and in some cases it's important to determine whether the in-text citation is referring to the method or tool being used or to the underlying reasoning the authors used for selecting a method or tool, which may be more consistent with the Background function class.

Examples:

(relevant text and connected citation in bold)

"When the reaction temperature was reached, 0.05 mol/L sulfuric acid was introduced to the reactor and the hydrolyzate was constantly removed. The two-step acid hydrolysis included a high concentration of hydrochloric acid (32% and 28%), HC fraction, and rice hulls as described previously (Green Sugar AG, 2018). Steam explosion followed by enzymatic hydrolysis included CE/HC, miscanthus (hydrolyzate d), and wheat straw (hydrolyzate e) as described previously (Schlate et al.)."

"Tissues were then sectioned in a cryostat, placed in slides. The slides were then stained for COX and SDH, as described (Sciacco & Bonilla, 1996). For histological and immunohistological analyses, mice were anesthetized with an overdose of pentobarbital and perfused with PBS followed by 10% neutral buffer formalin (NBF)."

Support Function Class

Function Notes:

  • Making a direct comparison of current work to cited work
  • Usually confirming results or supporting methodology of cited work in an explicit manner
  • Typically found in Results or Discussion sections but not exclusively there

Common language associated with the Support function class includes but is not limited to the following examples:

  1. "These results are consistent with [cited reference]..."
  2. "...similar to previous reports [cited reference]..."

The most difficult aspect of correctly identifying this class is determining whether the comparison being drawn by the authors is between the current results/paper and the cited work. Alternatively, the authors could be drawing a comparison between two other cited works, in which case the function class of those in-text citations would likely fall into the Discuss function class. Without a clear indication of comparison between current results/work, it may be appropriate to label as Discuss, which is the classification the Citation Context model will assign in-text citations that are not clearly in one of these main classes or subclasses.

Examples:

(relevant text and connected citation in bold)

"These results were nearly comparable to the highest efficiency carbon-based PSCs fabricated by complicated and multistep preparation processes (27, 38-42) and were much better than those of the monolithic structure of porous Ni and Au electrodes in PSCs produced using a complicated fabrication procedure. (33, 34)"

"These results indicate acceptability of PLRTs and are further supported by findings of Ogumo, Kunyanga, Okoth, and Kimenju (2017) that estimated the adoption rate of charcoal coolers in Kenya at 80% in Kajiado and Narok Counties in Kenya."

Differ Function Class

Function Notes:

  • Making a direct comparison of current work to cited work
  • Usually disagreeing with results of cited work in an explicit manner
  • Occasionally reporting non-reproduced results of cited work
  • Typically found in Results or Discussion sections but not exclusively there

This class has appeared much less commonly than the Support class.

Examples:

(relevant text and connected citation in bold)

"We also found that there is no significant correlation between treatment against V. destructor and loss rate, which is in disagreement with many previous studies [8,9,11,14,17]."

Discuss Function Class

Function Notes:

  • General discussion of the results of the current work and its relation to cited work
  • “Catch-all” class in which content that does not fit into any other class gets placed
  • Typically found in Discussion section but not exclusively there

 

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