The Half-Life and Obsolescence of the Literature Science Area: a contribution to the understanding the chronology of citations in academic activity.

Abstract

This paper develops a bibliometric analysis in Literature Science area in order to determinate the Half-Life and Obsolescence of this field of knowledge.They were based on citations that are in the References section and included in dissertation and theses from the Post-Graduate Program in Literature Science of the Belles-lettres School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) Brazil in the periods of 2007/2008 and 2011/2012. It was concluded that the master’s degree and doctor’s degree students in Literature Science prefer to use books as a source of research. Therefore, books and book chapters were the material selected for the calculation of Half-Life of literature. The results indicate that in Literature Science area the half-life is 14 years, by the citation analysis in theses and dissertations defended in the 2007/2008 period and 15 years for the 2011/2012 period.