Citation Analysis of Doctoral Theses in Political Science Submitted to Chaudhary Charan Singh University

Abstract

The present study investigates the use pattern of literature as revealed through the citation analysis of doctoral theses submitted to the Department of Political Science, Chaudhary Charan Singh University Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India from 2010-2015, with the aim of improving the existing collection development in the library. The study employed descriptive research design. Theses submitted for the award of Doctoral degree from 2010 to 2015 to the Department of Political Science, Chaudhary Charan Singh University Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India were examined. For the present study, 22 Ph.D. theses of political science were chosen as a sample during the year 2010-2014, there are in all 2192 citations appended in 22 theses. Extracted data were analysed using statistics. The study shows that the highest numbers of citations (61.1%) were recorded from books, followed by journal articles, newspapers, conference/proceedings, reports etc. Analysis on distribution of country-wise scattering of citations reveals that Indian literature received (51.6%) citations and ranked first, followed by USA and UK with 325 (14.8%) and 172 (7.8%) citations. The analysis of authorship pattern in political science theses reveals that 79.6% of citations were the papers written by single authors, which implies that political sciences are less collaborative as compared to sciences and technology. The analysis of citations indicates that most cited authors in the theses are Indian authored 64.8% and citations to foreign authors are about 35.2%. The outcome of the study is an original research work with citation analysis of doctoral theses in political science. It highlights the information materials available and used by researchers of the Department of Political Science for their research work and those which need to be added for a healthy collection.