Investigating the citations of the master degree dissertations of Iranian studies existing in Iranology Foundation during 2006-2012

The purpose of this research was to investigate citations in dissertations by Iranology MA students in the Iranian Studies Foundation from 2006 to 2012.The study investigated citation reports by MA students in four different orientations including 1) history, 2) culture, customs and cultural heritage, 3) principles of the restored version manuscripts and copies of layout,4) general. The use of resources in terms of type, time and language, as well as most used sources and authors were evaluated. Bradford's Law was used to determine core journals in English.The results of data analysis revealed that among the 13, 127 citations, book citations outnumbered citations from other resources. Regarding language, Persian sources were cited most (94.5 %).As three of the fields (orientations) admitted students from 2004 and the Manuscript Major admitted students since 2009, the study of citation reports reveal that the history field with a citation rate of 35.75% (4693 citations) ranked first while the manuscript major ranked last with a citation rate of 6.32% (829 citations). Persian books enjoyed the highest citation rate (73.28%) while dissertations had the lowest citation rate (0.86%).The average rate of citations for each paper was 90.53. The half-life of Arabic books showed most uses with 27.6 years whiledissertations showed the lowest mean of 8.1 years. The years 2012-2012 had most citations with a rate of 28.41%. Persian books with a rate of 77.15% and other sources with a rate of 0.01% were,respectively, most and least effectively used. The half-life of Arabic and Latin books was more than the other sources. Core journals identified based on Core Journals Bradford law were Iranian Studies and ZDMG. The most frequent Persian journals were National Studies and Historical Studies. The most often-cited author wasZabihullahSafa, and Dehkhoda Dictionary was the most frequently-cited book. The most frequent Latin book was the Encyclopedia of Iranica and the most frequent Arabic book wasAlzariaeletasanifeshiea by AghabozorgeTehrani.