Whether article types of a scholarly journal are different in cited metrics using cluster analysis of MeSH terms to display: A bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND: Many authors are concerned which types of peer-review articles can be cited most in academics and who were the highest-cited authors in a scientific discipline. The prerequisites are determined by: (1) classifying article types; and (2) quantifying co-author contributions. We aimed to apply Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) with social network analysis (SNA) and an authorship-weighted scheme (AWS) to meet the prerequisites above and then demonstrate the applications for scholars. METHODS: By searching the PubMed database (pubmed.com), we used the keyword “Medicine” [journal] and downloaded 5,636 articles published from 2012 to 2016. A total number of 9,758 were cited in Pubmed Central (PMC). Ten MeSH terms were separated to represent the journal types of clusters using SNA to compare the difference in bibliometric indices, that is, h, g, and x as well as author impact factor(AIF). The methods of Kendall coefficient of concordance (W) and one-way ANOVA were performed to verify the internal consistency of indices and the difference across MeSH clusters. Visual representations with dashboards were shown on Google Maps. RESULTS: We found that Kendall W is 0.97 (χ = 26.22, df = 9, P < .001) congruent with internal consistency on metrics across MeSH clusters. Both article types of methods and therapeutic use show higher frequencies than other 8 counterparts. The author Klaus Lechner (Austria) earns the highest research achievement(the mean of core articles on g = Ag = 15.35, AIF = 21, x = 3.92, h = 1) with one paper (PMID: 22732949, 2012), which was cited 23 times in 2017 and the preceding 5 years. CONCLUSION: Publishing article type with study methodology and design might lead to a higher IF. Both classifying article types and quantifying co-author contributions can be accommodated to other scientific disciplines. As such, which type of articles and who contributes most to a specific journal can be evaluated in the future.