Co-citation

The motivations of authors for citing literature can vary greatly and occur for a variety of reasons aside from simply referring to academically relevant documents. Cole and Cole expressed this concern based on the observation that scientists tend to cite friends and research colleagues more frequently, a partiality known as cronyism. Additionally, it has been observed that academic works which have already gained much credit and reputation in a field tend to receive even more credit and thus citations in future literature, an observation termed the Matthew effect in science. ==See also==