Reference author usage map

The reference author usage map is a plot of the number of citations to each reference author. The principal use of this type of map is to gain an idea of the dynamics of authorities in the specialty.

Building the reference author usage map.

• Before a reference timeline can be generated, you must first perform author cocitation clustering.

• On the TFGUI select Cooccurrence > make crossmaps > ref author usage. A separate window will appear displaying the paper author usage plot.

Description of the reference author usage plot.

• The elements of the reference author usage plot are shown in the figure below:

1. Plot area. The x position of each circle corresponds to a reference author on the dendrogram, the y position of circle is the year. The size of the circle is proportional to the number of papers that cite the reference author in the corresponding year.
2. Year axis. Years increase going up.
3. Author cocitation clustering dendrogram. The dendrogram is identical to the RF to reference author crossmap dendrogram.
4. Reference author labels. Reference author labels are identical to the RF to reference author crossmap labels.
5. Crosshairs. Clicking the mouse in the plot area put a vertical and horizontal line on the plot that intersects at the point that was selected. This crosshair is useful for identifying the year and reference author corresponding to selected circles on the map.
6. Annotate menu. The menu has functions to increase or decrease the circle sizes, zoom to interesting parts of the map, and to adjust plot margins.
7. Webpage menu. This menu has a control to generate a reference usage plot webpage that can be posted to a web server.