Citation Analysis of Bibliographic Sources of Dissertations in Persian Language and Literature in ShahidChamran University of Ahvaz during 1372-1388h

The present research aimed at identification of the state of citations in dissertations of Persian Language and Literature in ShahidChamran University of Ahvaz during 1372 to 1388h. (1993-2009c.). 102 masters and doctoral dissertations formed the research population. The required data were collected by taking notes from bibliographies provided at the end of each dissertation. The collected data were input in Excel and analyzed. Results of the analysis revealed that the mean number of citations in each dissertation was 61.2. From 6482 citations, the majority (92.97%) referred to books. The half-life of Persian cited books calculated as 30 years, and that of Persian journal articles cited was 20 years. The half-lives of English and Arabic books were calculated 20 years each. Most of the examined dissertations (21%) were on encyclopedic dictionaries. There were no dissertations on humor. The highly cited source was Dehkhoda Encyclopedia with 53 citations, and the highly cited author was Nezami with 116 citations. The highly cited journals were also identified in this study.