Well-ordered Collaboration Structures of Co-Author Pairs in Journals

Abstract

In single-authored bibliographies only single scientist distribution can be found. But in multi-authored bibliographies single scientists distribution, pairs distribution, triples distribution, etc., can be presented. Whereas regarding Lotka s law single scientists P distribution (both in single-authored and in multi-authored bibliographies) is of interest, in the future pairs P, Q distribution, triples P, Q, R distribution, etc. should be considered. Starting with pair distribution, the following question arises in the present paper: Is there also any regularity or well-ordered structure for the distribution of coauthor pairs in journals in analogy to Lotka’s law for the distribution of single authors? Usually, in information science “laws” or “regularities” (for example Lotka’s law) are mathematical descriptions of observed data in form of functions; however explanations of these phenomena are mostly missing. By contrast, in this paper the derivation of a formula for describing the distribution of the number of co-author pairs will be presented based on wellknown regularities in socio-psychology or sociology in conjunction with the Gestalt theory as explanation for well-ordered collaboration structures and production of scientific literature, as well as derivations from Lotka’s law. The assumed regularities for the distribution of co-author pairs in journals could be shown in the co-authorship data (1980-1998) of the journals Science, Nature, Proc Nat Acad Sci USA and Phys Rev B Condensed Matter.