The clothing and textile research base: an author cocitation study

Abstract

This is a study of the clothing and textile research base using author cocitation analysis. The study uses a custom database from a 15 year period, containing all citations in the field's leading journal: the Clothing and textile Research Journal. These citations are converted to cocitation counts, with the top cited authors being selected for further study. Using principal component analysis, the study identifies and measures the structure of the research base. The structure is mapped in four segmentations: as a complete 15 year block, and in three five-year segments. From the 15 year block, the core of the clothing and textile research base is made visible. From the three five-year blocks the study captures field dynamics and trends. Finally, an initial interpretation is offered as to the meaning of the results and analyses. This document has great potential for bibliometricians as a case study in author cocitation analysis. During the course of the analysis, the author proposes a novel cocitation counting algorithm that reduces the processing time and power needed for converting citations to cocitation matrices. The study also documents key bibliometric data such as citation distributions. For clothing and textile scholars, the study provides the largest and most quantitative analysis to date of their research base. It also provides immense base data from which other studies can be done.