New research in Journal of Informetrics asked 2,300+ social scientists from 42 countries: what are your top-3 publications?
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2025.101757
Only ~40% of self-identified “top” works also ranked in the author’s top-3 by citations. Even tripling citation counts wouldn’t push nearly a third of them into the bibliometric top. And 17% of “best” works don’t even appear in Scopus - especially in sociology and political science.
