Citation Analysis of resources of M.A.theses and PH.D. dissertations of Arabic language and literature in faculty of foreign languages at the University of Isfahan. 2001-2006

The present study deals with the references for M.A. and Ph.D. dissertations in Arabic language and literature in school of foreign languages in Isfahan University in 2001-2006. Using the research method of citation analysis, some of 4126 citations, 52 M.S. theses and 3 Ph.D. theses, were analyzed. The research method is of descriptive. It was used the software Excel to analyze the data. Answering the research questions, the following data was obtained: the highest rate of citation was for the books by 96.66%, the lowest rate of citation was for the theses by 0.81%, the highest rate for place of publication was for Lebanon by 55.46%, and the highest citation rate was for Arabic language by 91.87%. 32.62% of books had the added certificate by editor and commentator, and 6.84% of books had the added certificate by translator. The most of citations were from books published after 1960, especially from 1961 to 1990. The correlation coefficient between the time of publication and the number of citation was r = -0.018, which indicates the weak correlation between the time of publication and the number of citation.