Using ‘core documents’ for detecting and labelling new emerging topics

The notion of ‘core documents’, first introduced in the context of co-citation analysis and later re-introduced for bibliographic coupling and extended to hybrid approaches, refers to the representation of the core of a document set according to given criteria. In the present study, core documents are used for the identification of new emerging topics. The proposed method proceeds from independent clustering of disciplines in different time windows. Cross-citations between core documents and clusters in different periods are used to detect new, exceptionally growing clusters or clusters with changing topics. Three paradigmatic types of new, emerging topics are distinguished. Methodology is illustrated using the example of four ISI subject categories selected from the life sciences, applied sciences and the social sciences.