Are methodological papers more cited than theoretical or empirical ones? The case of sociology

The objective of this study is to find out whether methodological papers published in core sociological journals are more frequently cited than theoretical or empirical (substantive) papers. The results indicate that such is indeed the case; moreover, this result is not due to a few "outlying", very highly cited papers. These findings are based on all the methodological and theoretical papers, and a sample of the empirical papers, published in 1972 and 1973 in three high-impact sociological journals. The citation counts for these papers were compiled from the Social Science Citation Index for the years 1972-1981. The data were analyzed separately for each journal and year of publication.