VOSviewer-Assisted Co-Citation Analysis
Also known as: VOSviewer co-citation mapping, bibliometric co-citation visualization, co-citation network analysis with VOSviewer, CCA-VOSviewer
VOSviewer-assisted co-citation analysis combines Henry Small's co-citation measure — counting how often two documents are jointly cited by later work — with VOSviewer's automated network construction and visual mapping capabilities. The result is a spatial map of the intellectual base of a research field, where documents that share many citing contexts cluster together, revealing foundational schools of thought and their relationships.
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When to use it
Use VOSviewer-assisted co-citation analysis when you need to map the intellectual foundations of a research field — identifying seminal works, distinct schools of thought, and how the literature is structured. It is well suited to systematic and scoping reviews that include a bibliometric component, and to standalone scientometric studies answering 'what are the conceptual roots of this field?' Requires citation data exported from Web of Science or Scopus; PubMed exports are less suitable because reference lists are often incomplete. Do not use it to assess the quality or content of individual studies, to answer clinical or intervention questions, or when your retrieved corpus is smaller than roughly 100 source documents — too few citing documents produces unstable co-citation counts.
Strengths & limitations
- Objectively surfaces the foundational documents driving a research field without requiring the researcher to read thousands of papers in advance.
- VOSviewer's free availability and point-and-click interface make the method accessible without programming skills.
- Visual cluster maps communicate intellectual structure intuitively to audiences unfamiliar with network analysis.
- Scales efficiently: the automated pipeline handles corpora of thousands of records that would be unmanageable by manual bibliographic tracing.
- Complements content-based reviews by revealing whose shoulders current research stands on, not just what topics are studied.
- Results depend entirely on the coverage and consistency of the underlying citation database; references not indexed in Web of Science or Scopus are invisible.
- Co-citation counts fluctuate with corpus size: a minimum co-citation threshold that works in a 2,000-document corpus may exclude important works in a 200-document corpus.
- Clusters reflect citation patterns, not necessary intellectual coherence — two works may be co-cited for opposite reasons (e.g., one citing the other to critique it).
- The method maps what has been cited, not what matters most conceptually; highly cited but methodologically flawed foundational papers will still dominate the map.
Frequently asked
What is the difference between co-citation analysis and bibliographic coupling?
Co-citation analysis links documents that are jointly cited by later work — it reflects retrospective intellectual influence and is best for mapping a field's foundational literature. Bibliographic coupling links source documents that share references — it reflects current research fronts. Co-citation maps the past; bibliographic coupling maps the present. VOSviewer supports both, and researchers often run both analyses in the same study.
How many source documents do I need for a reliable co-citation map?
A minimum of roughly 100 source documents is needed to generate any co-citation counts; 500 or more is preferable for stable clusters. With fewer than 100 documents the co-citation counts are too low for meaningful threshold filtering. Larger corpora (2,000–10,000) typically produce the richest maps, though very large corpora may require raising the minimum co-citation threshold to keep the map readable.
Can I export only from PubMed instead of Web of Science or Scopus?
VOSviewer can read PubMed exports, but PubMed does not consistently include full reference lists in its citation records. Incomplete reference data severely undercount co-citation strengths and can make major foundational works invisible. For co-citation analysis, Web of Science or Scopus exports are strongly preferred.
Is VOSviewer free and how do I cite it?
VOSviewer is free to download from vosviewer.com. The standard citation is: van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2), 523–538. doi:10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3. Always report the VOSviewer version number used.
Do I need to report the co-citation threshold I chose?
Yes. The minimum co-citation threshold is an analytic decision that directly determines which references appear in the map. Report the threshold value, the total number of cited references before filtering, and the number retained after filtering. This information is essential for reproducibility and allows readers to judge whether the threshold was appropriately selective.
Sources
- Small, H. (1973). Co-citation in the scientific literature: A new measure of the relationship between two documents. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 24(4), 265–269. DOI: 10.1002/asi.4630240406 ↗
- van Eck, N. J., & Waltman, L. (2010). Software survey: VOSviewer, a computer program for bibliometric mapping. Scientometrics, 84(2), 523–538. DOI: 10.1007/s11192-009-0146-3 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 3). VOSviewer-Assisted Co-Citation Analysis. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/scientometrics/vosviewer-assisted-co-citation-analysis
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Bibliographic CouplingBibliometrics↔ compare
- Bibliometric AnalysisScientometrics↔ compare
- Co-Citation AnalysisBibliometrics↔ compare
- Co-word AnalysisScientometrics↔ compare
- Science MappingBibliometrics↔ compare
- Scientometric AnalysisScientometrics↔ compare