A classification of citation roles for the social sciences and related fields

The paper proposes a classification scheme for the roles of citations in empirical studies from the social sciences and related fields. The use of the classification, which has eight categories, is illustrated in sociology, education, demography, epidemiology and librarianship; its association with the citations' location within the paper is presented. The question of repeated citations of the same document is discussed. Several research questions to which this classification is relevant are proposed. The need for further critique, validation and experimentation is pointed out.