Bibliometric study of doctoral dissertations on English language and literature

Abstract

<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";="" mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-US">Bibliometric analysis for 4066 citations collected from the doctoral dissertations on the English language and literature accepted by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University has been carried out to determine the use pattern of the literature by the researchers in English. Provides the main bibliographic forms of literature cited. Nonserial publications i.e. books, published from U.K. and periodicals from U.S.A. are mostly cited. Ranked list of periodicals, books and authors shows that Modern Fiction Studies and Times Literary Supplement are most preferred journals, whereas, American Fiction and Main Currents in American Thoughts are most frequently cited books. Amongst the first ten most cited authors, six are from USA and two each are from UK and India. English citations account for 99% and only one percent of the citations are shared by the two other languages, namely, Marathi and Sanskrit. Country wise distribution of periodicals and chronological distribution of citations indicate substantial use of older literature with a half-life value of 27.5 years. Authorship study indicates increasing trend towards multiple authorship. The data under study do not exactly fit into the Bradford's Law of Scattering.</span>