Example

Example of Citation Count Discrepancy Between Contradicting Papers

On March 20, 2020, Gautret et al. published a paper on hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment. On March 30, 2020, Alfred H.J. Kim published an opinion article criticizing its flaws. A search on May 10, 2020, showed the Gautret et al. paper had 646 citations, while Kim's critique had only 21. This large discrepancy illustrates how a heavily criticized paper can accumulate significantly more citations than the articles pointing out its flaws, even within a short timeframe.

Image 0

0

1

Updated 2026-07-06

Tags

CSCW (Computer-supported cooperative work)

Computing Sciences