Reference density trends in the major disciplines

Abstract The aim of this study was to determine whether different areas of knowledge presented different behaviour with regard to the number of references cited per journal document or if, conversely, they shared the same reference density practices. Bibliometric and bibliographic data were collected from 27,141 journals (indexed between 2001 and 2015 in the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR)) and the growth rates in reference density and number of documents and journals in each category were calculated at different levels of aggregation. Our analysis identified that (a) mean reference density values in some Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities categories were equal to or higher than t…