The changing role of cited papers over time: An analysis of highly cited papers based on a large full-text dataset

This paper examines how the role of cited papers evolves over time by analyzing nearly 900 highly cited papers (HCPs) published between 2000 and 2016 and the full text of over 220,000 papers citing them. We investigate multiple citation characteristics, including citation location within the full text, reference and in-text citation types, citation sentiment, and textual and bibliographic relatedness between citing and cited papers. Our findings reveal that as HCPs age, they tend to be cited earlier in papers citing them, mentioned fewer times in the full text, and more often cited alongside other references. Citation sentiment remains predominantly neutral, while both textual and bibliographic similarity between HCPs and their citing papers decline over time. These patterns indicate a shift from direct topical and methodological engagement toward more general, background, and symbolic referencing. The findings highlight the importance to consider citation context rather than relying solely on simple citation counts. Large-scale full-text analyses such as ours can help refine measures of scientific impact and advance scholarly search and science mapping by uncovering more nuanced connections between papers.