Informetric distributions, part I: Unified overview

Abstract

This article is the first of a two-part series on the informetric distributions, a family of regularities found to describe a wide range of phenomena both within and outside of the information sciences. This article introduces the basic forms these regularities take. A model is proposed that makes plausible the possibility that, in spite of marked differences in their appearance, these distributions are variants of a single distribution; heuristic arguments are then given that this is indeed the case. That a single distribution should describe such a wide range of phenomena, often in areas where the existence of any simple description is surprising, suggests that one should look for explanations not in terms of causal models, but in terms of the properties of the single informetric distribution. Some of the consequences of this conclusion are broached in this article, and explored more carefully in Part II. © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.