A family of fields

Bibliometrics is the quantitative study of publications; scientometrics studies science itself; webometrics and altmetrics extend this to the web. They share methods for counting and mapping research.

Two classic patterns

  • Bradford’s Law — a few core journals carry most of the key articles in a field; the rest are scattered widely.
  • Lotka’s Law — a small number of authors produce the majority of papers, while most authors publish only a few.
Worked example — Publish or Perish
Publish or Perish is a free desktop tool that pulls data (e.g. from Google Scholar) and computes citation metrics — total cites, h-index, and more — for an author or query. Handy when you lack a Scopus/WoS subscription — but it inherits Google Scholar’s messiness, so interpret with care.

🔗 Learn more (free): Harzing — Publish or Perish (free metrics tool)

Try it
Look up Bradford’s Law. In your field, can you name two or three “core” journals that seem to carry most of the important work?

Self-check

What does Bradford’s Law suggest about where the most important articles in a field are published?

© FRELIP, released under CC BY 4.0. Adapted in part from openly-licensed UNESCO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) and institutional research-support materials. Linked resources remain under their own licences. Curated by the FRELIP Open Courseware editorial team.

Last modified: Thursday, 4 June 2026, 12:49 PM