Indirect-collective referencing. I. The phenomenon of scientific literature, its life course and formai importance

Abstract

The definition and investigation of non-indexed indirect-collective referencing (ICR) as a phenomenon of scientific literature was based on the strict methodological principle of aiming to reveal the indisputable minimum. The investigation covered more than 4,200 processed articles and their close to 84,000 indexed-formal references taken into account. The findings: the phenomenon has been present in the elite physics journal literature for a century; the frequency of its occurrence and its formai importance are constantly growing; this growth is accelerating in pace with the publication explosion of Big Science. The frequency of occurrence of the ICR phenomenon reached, and for the last two decades has maintained the very high level of 20% and appears to be stabilized at this level in the representative elite general physics journal The Physical Review.