Citation analysis as a Research Method

Many Experts in various fieldes, count citation analysis as a research tool, but since citation analysis has some of the important characteristics of research methods, is a kind of research method.By the way, This paper is try to describing the place of citation analysis as a research method, assign quntitative and qualitative and pathology of the validity of this method.
This study has been done by documentary method and survey in related texts to gather relevant information.
Findings: Citation analysis has some of the important characteristics such as Describing phenomena objectively, Having Ideas, Indicating the relationship between the phenomenon and use of tools, and as well as other method, it sufers from some threats like: Do not pay attention biases in sampling data, ignoring the self-citation of sientists in the country, portion of Review Articles, The low of publication distance, Do not Consider methods of citation counting, Lack of Attention to variety of subject Areas and ignore the differences between interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research assessment.
Citatin Analysis can be a research method for researchers in various fields and especially for knowledge and information science researcher's and it could be categorized in mixed method.