The 'h' Index – A Measure of Quality of Scientific Research

#5 glad to see another higgs finder from Pakistan. hope you won`t mind dropping me a line at einsqad2@hotmail.com

best

Mr. biggsfinder:
Thanks for your input. I am a civil engineer who spent better part of his life in research. I am one example of a lesser scientist. There are thousands of scientists who are contributing to science in their own respective fields without being much noticed outside their disciplines. I did not use ``lesser`` in any disparaging sense. Be well,
Mohammad Gill

``lesser scientists``

What do you mean by lesser scientists. Just because someone does not ge the Nodel Prize does not mean that he/she is a lesser scientist. A case in point is the guy who got the 2003 (as far as I can remember) Nobel Prize for his work on superfluidity which he had done in the fifties. Now getting the Nobel Prize did not change him from a lesser scientist to a greater one over-night. Please comment.

Thats probably true. At least in engineering, a large chunk of publications come from beginning PhD and/or master`s students who are more likely to look for problems that are easily understandable and solvable. I`d imagine the papers cited by these are unlikely to tackle the major questions of the field.

A paper may be cited more often for many reasons, including the author`s name recognition, the topicality of the subject the lucidness of presentation or even the complexity of the topic covered, that is, a paper covering a less complicated subject may attract more citation than someone with Einstein-like theories but without his name recognition. Just a thought from a non-scientist!

Nuswanji:
People cite their own workmore often sometimes for the simple reason that they know their own work better than that of others`. Sometimes, there may be ulterior motives also as you suggested to inflate their own work. There exists another kind of problem also. Sometime some authors do not cite other people`s work due to professional rivalry. A prominent example of this neglect was Einstein`s omission of any reference to earlier work in his 1905 relativity paper. He rectified it somewhat by quoting Poincare`s work in one of his later papers.
These kinds of oversights, ommissions and self-indulgences may (or may not completely) even out. The h-index is however a suitable device for deciding the awards of tenure and promotions.
Mohammad Gill

Thank you Dr Gill. A most interesting and informative article. There is, however, still a tendency by many scientists to make sure that they, or their colleagues, cite their own previous work as often as possible, in order to inflate their citation rating. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any remedy for this rather dubious practice. Any thoughts?