A Statistical Analysis On A Study Of History Between 1996 And 2005

A Study of History is one of the most authoritative academic journals in the field of historiography in China. It represents China's highest level and latest research achievements in the study of historical theories. By analytical research on the columns, authors, citations, cited articles and others, the paper aims at knowing the authors' citation ability of domestic and foreign documents, offering various information about citation to the authors, editors as well as researchers of historical theories so as to put forward suggestions on the improvement of the references' description level and citation ability and raise the quality of this journal. Through the analysis on the content of the academic articles published on this journal, the paper intends to master the recent development status of historiography in the new era and its development trends, thus pointing out the direction of it in 21st century.The paper is composed of three parts. The first part mainly gives a general introduction of the background information and significance of the chosen topic, research content, research methods as well as the innovative ideas of the paper. With a statistic method, the second part mainly gives a relatively comprehensive analysis of the journal A Study of History from the following seven perspectives. First, the paper introduces the analysis of the columns and citation of A Study of History, drawing a conclusion that this journal is characterized by focusing on the study of historical theories, the combination of theory and practice as well as new book remarks both at home and abroad, etc. Second, it analyzes the general information of the authors, including information of the collaborated authors, the systematic distribution of all authors, the geological distribution of authors with published articles, information about prolific authors and institutes, information about core authors with more than four articles and survey of foreign authors, etc. Third, it introduces the concept of citation. Statistics and analysis are conducted on quantity of citation, language classification of citation, distribution of citation types, and distribution of citation published years and self-citation rate etc. Fourth, the paper analyzes the general conditions of cited articles from A Study of History, statistic indexes of cited monographs, cited authors and distribution of cited times, etc., aiming at from the perspective of document citation evaluating the academic level of authors of the journal and the level of the articles' utility use. Fifth, by the data analysis, it figures out the impact factors of A Study of History, concluding that there is an upward trend in its cited frequency and impact factors in recent years, which demonstrates the high academic level of this journal. Sixth, statistics and analysis are also conducted on the problems of the description format and the solutions to them. Finally, based on the above analysis, the paper concludes that A Study of History attaches importance to historical theory study, the introduction of scientific research achievements in domestic and international historiography, and also takes the link of theory and practice into consideration. In addition, five suggestions are given. The third part discusses new progress and development trends of historiography, with reference to the contents of articles published in A Study of History in the past decade. It is worthy of attention to new progress and development trends of historiography over the previous two decades, mainly from the following aspects: 1) Insisting on historical materialism as guidance, the paper shows a retrospective study on Marxist historical materialism in 20th century China, analyzing articles carried in A Study of History about this aspect, describing the discussions about it from which historians unanimously agree that Marxist historical materialism will continue to play its role as guidance in 21st century China; 2)Since the new era, the field of historiography study has been extending and historiography subjects have been diversifying, which are drawn from the analysis of the subject matters of articles issued on A Study of History from these aspects such as history of political thought, history of Chinese culture, history of Chinese society, history of Chinese economics, history of China traditional legal system, oral history, regional history, military history as well as history of modernization,etc;3) By giving a general overview of studies on historical theories in the west and analyzing articles about them carried on A Study of History, it concludes that in recent years historiographers have trended to pay much attention to the study of foreign historical theories and reinforcement of historical exchange between China and foreign countries;4) By studying articles carried on A Study of History about review of 20^th century Chinese historiography and 21^st century outlook, it shows historical circle emphasizes studies on 20^th century Chinese historiography;5) By discussing expansions into traditional research propositions of historical theories, diversification of historical theory studies and historical methodology, it reveals the trends to broaden Chinese historical theory studies and diversify historical methodology; In addition, it statistically analyzes the revaluation of historical figures and events and problems studied by Chen Yinke and other historians.