Is Interpreter a Well-Cited Journal?

[Marcus]

But let's step back a moment, shall we? I encourage you to mosey on over to Google Scholar and repeat the exercise (or part of it, anyway) that Mr. Wright used for his "research." Go ahead: click on the citations link for any of Interpreter's "articles." Click on another. Notice anything? Yes, that's right: pretty much all of the "publications" that are citing Interpreter's output are other, incestuous Mopologetic venues: Book of Mormon Central; Meridian Magazine; and so forth. I would be willing to bet that a significant number of those citations were made by Daniel Peterson himself. Furthermore, I bet that "Interpreter" has not been cited by a single reputable academic publication--ever. I could be wrong about that, but in its 10+ year existence, I doubt that a single well-regarded scholar has bothered to cite their work in an admiring light. Again: they can feel free to prove me wrong. But I think it's safe to assume that the vast majority of these citations (if not all of them) are coming from the same incestuous network of Mopologetic-friendly, hardcore Mormon publications.

So the "apparent impact and reach" of Interpreter is actually laughably small--despite the "SeN" proprietor's rather ridiculous enthusiasm. Perhaps he really believed Wright's data? I mean, you wouldn't expect someone who believes that the Book of Mormon is real history to be gullible, would you?

I also took a look at Google Scholar and found several citations to Interpreter articles in Meridian Magazine. I did find an interesting reference to Interpreter as a secondary source in a 2022 paper posted on SSRN titled "Arab Colonialism and the Roots of the Golden Age of Islam."

Dr. Wright should make the results of his citation analysis public in the interest of transparency.

That would be nice. I did a quick and dirty sample and the results were disturbing. I took Carmack's first 5 articles during the time period Wright mentioned, and looked at their googles scholar citations.

here are my results:

Google scholar listed 26 total citations for the 5 papers.

12 were self citations by Carmack, all in three later papers, all from the Interpreter.

1 was in a Lindsay paper, also from the Interpreter.

5 were errors (one duplicate, 4 additional Lindsay/Interpreter citations that were repeats of the first one, NOT the next 4 papers.)

5 were from a John Gee book where it looks like he simply listed all the papers Carmack had in the Interpreter.

1 from a review written by Hardy about a different book, from BYU studies quarterly.

1 was wiki-linguistics in the B of M -- I recall reading the talk on this edit, If I recall correctly, it's there because Carmack himself put it here, so I'm going to label that self-cited.

And only ONE citation in a non LDS journal, lead author was a BYU visiting professor.

So, that's 1, maybe 2, legit citations, out of 26. About 4-7%.

The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies published 35 articles of all types that were cited at least once during that time period [2012-2018], for a total of 91 citations, or 2.68 citations per article. Interpreter published 69 articles focusing on the Book of Mormon that were cited at least once during that time period, for a total of 391 citations, or an average of 5.75 citations per article — more than double the citation rate of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

In comparison, I went to the 2012 volume of j of Book of Mormon studies, picked the first Book of Mormon related article from the list, and the paper had 13 citations. 4 were non-LDS related journals, 1 was same journal different authors, 3 were Book of Mormon central, 3 were latterdaysaintmagazine, 1 was a Penn state dissertation, and 1 was an article in the Interpreter, different authors.

That's at least 30% non-LDS citations, to the Interpreter's 4% , in my very anecdotal opinion.

So yes, I'd say Dr. Wright needs to show his work.

[Gadianton]

Notice anything? Yes, that's right: pretty much all of the "publications" that are citing Interpreter's output are other, incestuous Mopologetic venues: Book of Mormon Central; Meridian Magazine; and so forth.

This is what's called a link farm, in www terms. I have no doubt that Interpreter will one day boast the largest link farm on the planet. Not mink, link.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Notice anything? Yes, that's right: pretty much all of the "publications" that are citing Interpreter's output are other, incestuous Mopologetic venues: Book of Mormon Central; Meridian Magazine; and so forth.

This is what's called a link farm, in www terms. I have no doubt that Interpreter will one day boast the largest link farm on the planet. Not mink, link.

Well. Minks are weasels so it’d work for the Interpreter, too.

- Doc

[Tom]

I also took a look at Google Scholar and found several citations to Interpreter articles in Meridian Magazine. I did find an interesting reference to Interpreter as a secondary source in a 2022 paper posted on SSRN titled "Arab Colonialism and the Roots of the Golden Age of Islam."

Dr. Wright should make the results of his citation analysis public in the interest of transparency.

That would be nice. I did a quick and dirty sample and the results were disturbing. I took Carmack's first 5 articles during the time period Wright mentioned, and looked at their googles scholar citations.

here are my results:

Google scholar listed 26 total citations for the 5 papers.

12 were self citations by Carmack, all in three later papers, all from the Interpreter.

1 was in a Lindsay paper, also from the Interpreter.

5 were errors (one duplicate, 4 additional Lindsay/Interpreter citations that were repeats of the first one, NOT the next 4 papers.)

5 were from a John Gee book where it looks like he simply listed all the papers Carmack had in the Interpreter.

1 from a review written by Hardy about a different book, from BYU studies quarterly.

1 was wiki-linguistics in the B of M -- I recall reading the talk on this edit, If I recall correctly, it's there because Carmack himself put it here, so I'm going to label that self-cited.

And only ONE citation in a non LDS journal, lead author was a BYU visiting professor.

So, that's 1, maybe 2, legit citations, out of 26. About 4-7%.

The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies published 35 articles of all types that were cited at least once during that time period [2012-2018], for a total of 91 citations, or 2.68 citations per article. Interpreter published 69 articles focusing on the Book of Mormon that were cited at least once during that time period, for a total of 391 citations, or an average of 5.75 citations per article — more than double the citation rate of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.

In comparison, I went to the 2012 volume of j of Book of Mormon studies, picked the first Book of Mormon related article from the list, and the paper had 13 citations. 4 were non-LDS related journals, 1 was same journal different authors, 3 were Book of Mormon central, 3 were latterdaysaintmagazine, 1 was a Penn state dissertation, and 1 was an article in the Interpreter, different authors.

That's at least 30% non-LDS citations, to the Interpreter's 4% , in my very anecdotal opinion.

So yes, I'd say Dr. Wright needs to show his work.

Well done, Marcus.

[Marcus]

Well done, Marcus.

Thanks, Tom!