Citation Classics in Deviant Behavior : A Research Note

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Abstract
The number of citations a scholarly work receives is a common measure of its impact on a field. Citation classics are works that are the most highly cited. The purpose of the present article is to describe and analyze citation classics in the journal Deviant Behavior (DB) and to compare them to classics in related academic journals. Data are from the Web of Science and refer to the number of citations each of the top 1% of articles in DB received since 1979. Data are also collected for three additional journals for comparative purposes. Of the 960 works published in DB, the median citations for DB citation classics were 55.5 with a range between 43 and 103. The impact of DB citation classics was in the middle of the three comparison journals. The principle themes of DB classics included delinquency (3) and sexual deviance (3). The other topics included one article each on suicide, dating violence, employee deviance, and involuntary childlessness. The classics represent a balance between qualitative and quantitative methods. Citation classics in DB represent a variety of topical areas in deviance, but with special attention paid to sexual and juvenile deviance. Future work is needed to assess what predicts which DB articles ultimately become citation classics.

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