Table 1.

Corrective effects of the h_b-index

Citation distributions*	Total citations	Excess citations (e)†	Publications	h-index	hb-index
A	100	0	10	10	10
B	190	90	10	10	19.48
C	200	100	10	10	20.00
D	230	130	10	10	21.40
E	370	270	10	10	26.43
F	550	450	10	10	31.21
G	1050	650	20	20	45.50
H‡	7150	5550	260	40	114.50

*Distribution A has the minimum number of publications and citations that yield the h-index of 10. The other citation distributions were made specific for clarity and devised to give a wide range of total citations, but are not unique to our argument. Distribution B is assigned 190 citations with 1 paper cited 100 times and 9 papers cited 10 times each. Distribution C has 1 paper cited 50 times, 2 papers cited 40 times each, and 7 papers cited 10 times each. Distribution D has 1 paper cited 50 times, 3 papers each cited 30 times, 3 papers each cited 20 times, and 3 papers each cited 10 times. Distribution E has 1 paper cited 100 times, 3 papers each cited 50 times, 3 papers each cited 30 times, and 3 papers each cited 10 times. Distribution F has 1 paper with each of the following number of citations: 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, and 10. Distribution G has 1 paper cited 200 times, 4 papers each cited 100 times, 5 papers each cited 50 times and 10 papers each cited 20 times. Distribution H is 1 paper cited 500 times, 1 paper cited 300 times, 3 papers each cited 150 times, 10 papers each cited 100 times, 25 papers each cited 40 times, 60 papers each cited 30 times, 70 papers each cited 20 times, 50 papers each cited 10 times, and 40 papers each cited 5 times.

^†The sum of those citations of individual papers that are greater than or less than the value of h. Excess citations have the value of e as defined by . Therefore, e is the excess citations not credited by the h-index.

^‡The citations are distributed to show the effects on an author with a high number of publications and citations that include some publications with citations less than h.