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It can be very difficult — indeed, frustratingly so — to determine how one’s published research is received. One blunt measure is the ISI article citation count. As can be seen in the printout included in this portfolio (PDF here), citations to my published articles range from 0 to 31 total citations, with an average of 4.21 citations per year and an h-index (Hirsch Index) of 4. Although these numbers seem respectable on their face, I lack comparative data on total citations, citations per year, and h-index for sociologists, so it is impossible to understand these numbers in context. Because of the two to three year writing, editorial, and production lag in the publication process, my three most recent articles (in Social Compass [March 2007], Legislative Studies Quarterly [August 2006], and Teaching Sociology [July 2006]) have not been cited yet. Unfortunately, I cannot use that as an excuse for my December 2000 article in the Review of Religious Research, which has not been cited a single time (though I did just reject a submission to Sociology of Religion that cited it!). Some engagement is not captured by ISI counts, which only include citations to journal articles published in ISI listed journals. Google Scholar offers an alternative vehicle for examining citation counts. It’s scope is often broader because it captures other media such as working and conference papers, theses and dissertations, and non-ISI journals. For example, according to ISI, my October 1996 Teaching Sociology article has been cited seven times. According to Google Scholar, it has been cited 13 times. Also, my entry on “Spirituality” in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society is not even covered by ISI, while Google Scholar shows it has been cited five times. Another method is to look for qualitative evidence of engagement with one’s work. Here I provide just a few examples of this. In an article published in the Annals, University of Chicago sociologist Omar McRoberts spends three paragraphs engaging an argument I made for a narrative approach to studying religious experience. Jim Spickard does likewise in his article on “Ritual, Symbol, and Experience” in Sociology of Religion. My most cited article, “Secularization on Trial,” coins the term and argues for a “neo-secularization” perspective in the sociology of religion. This framework is engaged explicitly in Andrew Kip’s article on nonheterosexual Christians, Kimon Sargent’s book on seeker churches, and Robert Shelledy’s article on global politics. In graduate school, I once heard someone say that most published articles are never cited. I do not know if this is true or not, but I can say that I was relieved to see both quantitative and qualitative evidence that other scholars are reading and engaging my work — at least most of it.
ISI Citation Counts for Articles Excerpts from five scholarly publications that engage my work
The Catholic Church in State Politics: Negotiating Prophetic Demands and Political Realities
Goodbye Father: The Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church Although it is not a work of original scholarship, I am as proud of my work editing Richard Schoenherr’s Goodbye Father for publication as anything I have done as a scholar. Therefore, I am including in my dossier reviews of the book, including Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Wills’ review from the New York Times Book Review. Many of the reviews acknowledge my editorial work.
Student Movements for Multiculturalism: Challenging the Curricular Color Line in Higher Education
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