Non-indexed eponymic citedness. VI. Forms of literature citedness of eponymic terms. Some remarks to the study by Gy. Válás

Abstract

Gy. Válás in a recent study (TMT, vol. 38. 1991. p. 461-469) pointed out the existence of eponymic terms in computer searchable bibliographic databases, criticizing partially this way the investigations published by E. Száva-Kováts on non-indexed eponymic citedness. Gy. Válas regarded these eponymic descriptors as eponymic citations and, as a conclusion, he proposed the data of Citations Indexes to be extended by these descriptors of the bibliographic databases because, according to Gy. Válas, this way real numbers can beobtained characterizing citedness.
In the present study, E. Száva-Kováts shows that the critics by Gy. Válas are unproper and his suggestion is erroneous. The present author reveals the forms of citedness of eponymical terms that exist today actually in the science literature, and illustrates real types of literature citedness forms of these terms through some practical examples. The author proves that, in most of these real types of citedness torms existing actually in science literature, the introduction of the proposal suggested by Gy. Válas would lead to a methodological error, to the duplication of counting. The eponymic descriptors of bibliographic databases are not literature references, and the application of Válas's proposal as a method of research would result in mistakes both theoretically and practically. The application of the method suggested would not cure the irreality of the results of "scien-tometric" citedness examinations based only on data of Citation Indexes. These results with limited validity but theoretically unambiguous character would be distorted in their direction and in a non-unambiguous way even theoretically.