Eponyms in scientific texts: analysis model and application in the field of Bibliometrics

Abstract:

Eponyms occur in several areas of knowledge and in the scientific field they are part of the science reward system, as they permanently signal the authors' original contribution to the advancement of knowledge in their areas. In this context, the objective of this article was to elaborate and apply a model of analysis of eponyms present in scientific articles in the field of Bibliometrics. This is an exploratory and descriptive research with a qualitative-quantitative methodology and anchored in bibliometric and content analyses. The corpus of analysis consisted of eponyms (n=246) selected from articles (n=104) published in five journals in the field of Information Science. The main results indicated that the most frequent eponyms were the three classical laws of Bibliometrics (Bradford's Law, Lotka's Law and Zipf's Law), followed by eponymous expressions from other areas of knowledge, such as Mathematics and Statistics, as well as the occurrence of obliteration by incorporation arising from the non-citation of the original works that originated the eponyms. Among the eponymists (n=203) one stood out for citing the majority (n=21) of the eponymized (n=38). Thus, by choosing a theoretical framework based on the Sociology of Science and Information Science, the analysis model developed and applied to a set of scientific texts shed light on the understanding of the reward system of science through the study of eponymy in the field of Bibliometrics.

Keywords:
eponyms; scientific recognition; sociology of science; information science; bibliometrics