Abstract
Noting that although the analysis of citations has become a frequently used resource in recent empirical studies of science, little progress has been made towards understanding the reasons for the practice of citation, the paper explores the notion that references provide persuasive support for the results announced in the citing paper. It is argued that authors choose to cite articles they recognize to be authoritative in order to justify the validity, novelty and significance of their own work. In so doing, authors can be seen to be both demonstrating their allegiance to a particular section of the research community and contributing to the establishment of a consensus about the worth of the cited work. These ideas are applied to explain the findings of research on the quality of articles and on co-citation analysis, and is used to criticize studies which undertake a content analysis of citations.