Lotka’s law
Bibliometrics
Definition. Lotka’s law describes author productivity: the number of authors publishing n papers is roughly proportional to 1/n², so a few authors produce many papers and most produce one.
Explanation
Lotka formulated the law from chemistry and physics publication data (Lotka, 1926). It is one of the classic laws that guide performance analysis in bibliometric reviews (Hoang, 2025).
Related concepts
Bradford’s law Bibliometric analysis h-index
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References
Hoang, A.-D. (2025). Evaluating Bibliometrics Reviews: A Practical Guide for Peer Review and Critical Reading. Evaluation Review. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193841X251336839
Lotka, A. J. (1926). The frequency distribution of scientific productivity. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 16(12), 317–323.
Cite this entry: Kurutkan, M. N. (2026). Lotka’s law. In The Health Topics glossary. https://healthtopic.org/glossary/lotkas-law/