An analysis of bibliometric indicators to JCR according to Benford’s law

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) is the main source of bibliometric indicators known by the scientific community. This paper presents the results of a study of the distributions of the first and second significant digits according to Benford’s law (BL) of the number of articles, citations, impact factors, half-life and immediacy index bibliometric indicators in journals indexed in the JCR Sciences and Social Sciences Editions from 2007 to 2014. We also performed the data analysis to country’s origin and by journal’s category, and we verified that the second digit has a better adherence to BL. The use of the second digit is important since it provides a more sound, complete and consistent analysis of the bibliometric indicators.