Mapping One Decade of Identity Studies: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis of Global Trends and Scholarly Impact
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this paper and my apologies for running a little later than promised.
The paper sets the ambitious goal of reviewing almost one decade of scholarly research on identity, across multiple fields. The risk with casting such a vast net is the compromising the focus and depth of discussion, at least when the research is bound by customary word limits of a scientific journal.
The paperp presents a definition of identity, discussing it's relevance and utility in broad terms. It then presents another research question, namely, how would/could bibliometric software analysis contribute to the study of identity and, specifically, help us identify important gaps. And then, a third aspect is to map the potential contributions of identity studies to other fields of scholarship. The second and third questions, while important, point to different angles for investigation. Arguably then, the authors seek to grapple with three questions.
Thus, the paper needs to be reframed to clearly reflect these questions from the outset and this has to run through the structure of the paper with sufficient signposting.
In addition to these, there is yet another goal of encouraging scholars to use this method and it's tools. while I relate to this sentiment, perhaps I encourage the authors to perhaps not formulate this as a goal, because it cannot be measured and assessed meaningfully within the context of a paper.
Three method is clearly described and this is a positive aspect of the paper. Here the areas of discussion meet the expectation by focusing on, for example, networks of coauthors, main journals etc.
While there are interesting points here, general statements of advisory such as “The combined insights reveal that identity research is a rich, interdisciplinary field that spans both sociocultural and psychological dimensions” undermine the potential values of the analysis: did we need all the method to tell us that, one might ask.
To summarise, I recommend the following:
- Clearly articulate the paper's aims and make the structure corresponded to them. If an aim is not served, then remove it;
- Restructure and clarify your 6 guiding questions. State their logic clearly upfront;
- Avoid redundancies and repetitions, there are some in there;
- The very last sentence of conclusion should speak to your aims at the intro.
- Tighten the statements and reflections, avoided obviosities;
- Conduct a thorough spelling and grammar check.
Overall, I believe that by addressing such issues, this paper makes a useful contribution to knowledge. I recommend resubmission after addressing the above points.
Thank you again and best wishes.
Author Response
Comment Reviewer:
The paper needs to be reframed to clearly reflect its three research questions and align its structure accordingly.
Response:
The research questions have been reformulated into three main questions and explicitly stated in the Introduction. The paper's structure has been aligned with these questions, with clear signposting throughout.
- Page Reference: Pages 2-3 (Introduction), where the research questions (RQ1 to RQ6) are clarified.
Comment Reviewer:
Avoid formulating the encouragement of bibliometric tools usage as a primary goal since it cannot be assessed meaningfully within the paper's context.
Response:
The encouragement for using bibliometric tools has been reframed as a broader implication rather than a primary goal. The methodological contribution is now presented as an additional implication of the study.
- Page Reference: Page 4 (Objective).
Comment Reviewer:
Restructure and clarify the six guiding questions and their logic.
Response:
The six guiding questions have been restructured and logically explained in the Introduction. Their connection to the paper's objectives is emphasized.
- Page Reference: Pages 2-3 (Introduction, Research Questions).
Comment Reviewer:
Avoid redundancies and repetitions throughout the paper.
Response:
Redundancies in the Results, Discussion, and Conclusion sections have been identified and removed. Each point is presented once with clearer emphasis on specific contributions.
- Page Reference: Pages 10-12 (Results), Pages 21-22 (Discussion), Pages 23-24 (Conclusion).
Comment Reviewer:
Ensure the conclusion directly addresses the aims stated in the introduction.
Response:
The Conclusion section has been revised to explicitly connect the findings to the aims outlined in the Introduction, emphasizing the success in addressing the research questions and specific contributions of the study.
- Page Reference: Pages 23-24 (Conclusion).
Comment Reviewer:
Tighten the statements and reflections, avoiding obvious or general statements.
Response:
General statements in the Discussion and Results sections have been removed or replaced with specific analyses based on bibliometric findings.
- Page Reference: Pages 12-20 (Discussion and Results).
Comment Reviewer:
Conduct a thorough spelling and grammar check.
Response:
A thorough grammar and spelling review has been conducted for the entire document. Specific corrections include replacing “it’s” with “its” and ensuring consistent academic tone.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This article presents a bibliographic analysis of identity studies. There are a number of issues that need serious attention.
Not least of these is the quality of the many figures that are included. Many of these use an extremely small type size, that make them illegible on the usual page or screen size, Figures 4, 11, 12 and 14 in particular contain details that cannot be read, even at the higher levels of magnification – a much higher dpi resolution is essential, and even then it is hard to see how they would be easily legible – they could never be so in a print on A4 paper, and on a screen would require a magnification so great that the whole figure could not be seen at once. Figure 16 would need to be printed as a poster, on a sheet approx. 1 meter x 50 centimetres , to have any hope of legibility. These factors, given the centrality of the figures to convey the message, have made this paper very hard to review.
(another point re the figures – there are two Figure 1s (p 5 and p 6), and no figure 10)
The second problem is that it is not recognised (until the final few pages) that identity has multiple meanings, and there are several distinct academic schools of thought about its meaning. There are psychological-social studies, where identity is seen as primarily stable, with little change, and as developed, rather than constructed; there the socio-cultural identity school, which regards identity as mediated and situated in cultural and historical space, and analyses identity in relation to the social context; and there are the post-structuralists, who regard identity as dynamic, flexible, multiple and contingent – it is repeatedly constructed by the individual in a reflective manner. Not starting from this understanding, and lumping together all articles that have ‘identity’ as a key word is bound to produce an unfathomable set of relationships.
As is indeed the case in this article. Most researchers into identity know their school, and remain within it – but make references to other distinct schools – either to emphasise the particular construction of identity they are working within, or to critique the other variant schools. This produces a plethora of cross-referencing, that a crude bibliometric approach to a singular ‘identity’ cannot help but be confusing.
It is also unclear what is the sample size and period. It’s 18,399 at line 7 and 143, and 681,757 at line 93. The search is on a keyword of ‘identity ‘in SCOPUS cited publications, I think. And the time frame is variously 1993 to 2024 ( l 192) and 2013-2024 (elsewhere); l 897 refers to having analysed three decades of wok. This reduction (to 2.67% of the original size) is not simply because of the single-decade that seems to have been selected, but also to reducing the SCOPUS search to the ‘social sciences’ and ‘arts and humanities’ subjects (l 201) – though SCOPUS does not list ‘arts and humanities’ in the range of the subjects in its index. Even with the elimination of the physical, health and life sciences, and two thirds of the time frame, it’s hard to see the 97% reduction – these other sciences are unlikely to have so many references (30%+) to account for the fall in use of ‘identity’
The analysis also raises a series of questions.
9% of international co-authorship is not particularly high, and hardly indicative of ‘global cooperation’ (l 253). And taking a 10 or 11 year range of studies, a citation year average rate of 5.12 years does not indicate the majority of references being ‘relatively recent’ – 2023 publications could only have been reference in 2024. This also applies to the citations per year in Figure 3. Just what one might expect, nothing to see here.
The USA does not ‘stand out’ as the major producers of papers on a per capita basis. Indeed, on that basis Australia produces 69.3 papers per million, the UK 65.1 pm, Canada 36 pm, Spain 29.3 pm, and the US a mere 28.4 pm. The suggested ‘causes’ for Australia’s alleged growth in the field (l 285-7) are hypotheses (there’s no evidence presented of actual growth).
The Sankey-three field plot is very hard to read. It appears to suggest that the top twenty publications, and the top twenty authors of ‘identity’ article are related through their country of origin in about 40% of the time. The authors analysed ( I think the top 10 authors in the period are in Table 1). Not sure how an author can be just ‘JR’ (l 346) – who are they/she/he? And the number of articles produced doesn’t necessarily indicate having a ‘significant influence’ (l 457), merely being ‘prolific’ (l 456).
Indeed, the H factor analysis that follows suggests this. JR, with their 43 articles, only has an h factor of 16 (not remarkably high), and this means that – even if he only produced articles on identity, at least 27 of the articles he produced in the decade were cited less than 16 times. That is not a great impact.
Figure 7 is not explained.
The citation rate by country (Figure 9) would be rather different if country size were taken into consideration.
When Table 1 and Table 2 are compared, none of the most prolific authors are in the most cited authors list. Neither measure is able to identify the most influential papers in the period of study.
The word cloud: not particularly informative. Smaller words unreadable at any resolution. Because it’s based on author-supplied keywords, it’s not always the most useful of information.
The tree map. The information that “’identity’ appears most prominently” (l 546) is not exactly unexpected.
The Trend Topics (Fig 13) are rather odd. It’s unclear what the horizontal lines (whether solid or broken) mean. Does the solid line for social identity starching over 2023-4 means it was only significant in that year? Intersectionality has been a key word in many areas since its origins in 1989 with Crenshaw’s article, but here features 2023-4 only? The statement (l 570) that ‘concepts such as “identity”, “social identity” and “identity construction” have been central to academic discourse” are a “primary takeaway” of the study is wholly to be expected – the interesting thing would be if they were not - but they only appear with a solid line for 2022-24 – this is odd? (the solid line is much longer for ‘political relations’, ‘political geography’ and ‘Christianity’. And, given it was announced on the last day of 2019, how could ‘Covid 19’ be anywhere except 2020 (line 592)?
Figure 14 – the co-occurrence network. The colours are not explained here – presumably they do have a significance? Why are ‘humans’ and ‘’human’ differentiated (other that that’s what the article authors put down)? The claim (l 654) that this ‘points to emerging areas of focus’ is patently false – there is no time dimension in this data in this figure, so nothing can be said about what’s changing.
The conceptual Structure map is quite unhelpful. What are the two axes in this? With maximum magnification, they are ‘Dim[ension] 1’ and ‘Dim 2’. Why are these not shown in meaningful words, and at a readable size, and – more importantly -what do they mean? It may show – for the first time in the article – ‘a psychological and social concept coalescence’ (l 670-1) - Hurrah!
The Dendrogram of hierarchical clustering is frustrating. It can only be read as a whole (which it need to be, if it to make sense) if it is printed, projected, in high resolution at a I meter x 500 cm size, (39 inches by 19 inches). The text at 719 – 724 that identity research often involves mixed methods … etc is really banal commentary.
The Co-citation image (Fig 17) at last reveals what was pointed out at the beginning of this review – that there are three distinct understandings and interpretations of the word identity , shown by the concatenation round Erikson, Tajfel and the Goffman/Bourdieu/ Foucault/Butler groups (and the extreme marginalisation of Freud, and his ‘id’ and ‘super-id’!). This could be the starting point of some real bibliographic analysis, examining the relationships , themes and data within each of these, as separate notions of identity. (The fact that there are links shown here between the three is not unexpected. Most writers take care to indicate what their construct of a model of identity is, by referring the the others - a useful distancing technique (or way to challenge the other interpretations)).
The discussion on the limitations comes very late in the day (l 847-859). The suggestion for linking this with some qualitative work – perhaps sorting all the articles into one of the three groups, and some bridging ones linking any two of these) would be really useful and revelatory of trends, but immensely time consuming, even with a mere 18,399 articles to sort (if not the full 689,000.
It's odd to have an article where all the references are just in the first 23 pages.
This article needs quite a bit of revision, and a real discussion with the publishers about how these figure could be reproduced in a readable way (it might start with putting sensible point sizes in the creation of these figures? And increasing the dpi in some?). And a reframing of the text from such a positivistic reading of meanings about what it shows, and an indication of how it might be re-orientated to recognise the tri-furcation in the sense and use of ‘identity’.
Author Response
Comment Reviewer
The quality of the figures is poor, with text being too small to read, even with magnification. Specific figures (4, 11, 12, and 14) are illegible, and Figure 16 would need to be printed as a poster to be legible. Additionally, there are issues with figure numbering, such as two Figure 1s and no Figure 10.
Response:
The figures have been revised to ensure legibility with higher resolution and increased text size. Key figures (Figures 4, 11, 12, 14, and 16) now include appropriately scaled labels and annotations for clarity. The numbering has also been corrected to avoid duplication (e.g., two Figure 1s) and ensure sequential consistency. These changes can be observed on pages 5–9 and throughout the Results section.
Comment Reviewer
The article fails to recognize early on the multiple meanings of identity and the distinctions among academic schools (psychological-social, socio-cultural, and post-structuralist perspectives). This lack of differentiation leads to a confusing set of relationships.
Response:
A dedicated paragraph discussing the distinctions among the psychological-social, socio-cultural, and post-structuralist perspectives on identity has been added to the Introduction (page 2). This revision provides a clearer foundation for understanding the theoretical frameworks underpinning identity research, ensuring a more structured analysis throughout the article.
Comment Reviewer
There is inconsistency in the sample size and time frame. Mentioned figures (18,399 and 681,757) and time ranges (1993–2024 and 2013–2024) are unclear. The reduction in dataset size (to 2.67%) needs better explanation.
Response:
The sample size and time frame have been clarified in the Methodology (pages 4–5). The reduction process is explained step-by-step, detailing how the dataset was refined from the initial search results to the final set of 18,399 articles, focusing on Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities between 2013 and 2024.
Comment Reviewer
The analysis overstates claims of global cooperation (e.g., 9% international co-authorship is not particularly high) and recent citations. Some interpretations of citation trends are not supported by the data.
Response:
The discussion of international co-authorship and citation trends has been revised in the Results (pages 8–10). The language has been adjusted to present these findings as moderate rather than overstated, and additional data context has been provided to support the interpretation.
Comment Reviewer
The Sankey diagram is hard to read, and Figure 7 lacks explanation. Additionally, the co-occurrence network and conceptual structure map require better labeling and explanation.
Response:
The Sankey diagram, Figure 7, and the co-occurrence network have been improved with clearer labeling and annotations. Detailed explanations have been added to the Results (pages 9–10), ensuring that the visualizations are more accessible and their implications better understood.
Comment Reviewer
The word cloud and treemap are not particularly informative. Smaller words are unreadable, and the emphasis on "identity" as a central term is unsurprising.
Response:
The word cloud and treemap have been refined with larger text and better contrast to enhance readability. Their discussion in the Results (page 17, 18) has been revised to acknowledge the expected prominence of "identity" while emphasizing the less apparent trends in secondary terms and themes.
Comment Reviewer
Trend topics (Figure 13) and co-occurrence analysis (Figure 14) are confusing and seem inconsistent with reality. For example, "intersectionality" appears only in 2023–2024, despite its earlier significance.
Response:
Trend topics and co-occurrence analyses have been revised for accuracy. The temporal inconsistencies have been addressed in pages 19–20, with updated visualizations and commentary that reflect the earlier emergence of key terms like "intersectionality."
Comment Reviewer
The H-index analysis does not distinguish between prolific and influential authors, as none of the most prolific authors appear in the most cited list.
Response:
A discussion distinguishing between productivity (e.g., total publications) and influence (e.g., citations per publication) has been added to the Discussion (page 14). Additional metrics have been introduced to contextualize the contributions of prolific and influential authors more effectively.
Comment Reviewer
The discussion on limitations comes too late and does not adequately address the challenges of sorting articles into distinct identity schools or qualitative insights.
Response:
The limitations section has been moved to the last paragraph of Introduction (page 2) and expanded to address the challenges of categorizing articles into theoretical frameworks. Suggestions for integrating qualitative methodologies are provided to complement the bibliometric analysis and deepen the study's insights.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this paper again, and my sincere apologies for the unusual delay on my part, which has been due to personal health matters.
I think the paper has improved considerably and is almost ready to be published.
I say almost as I picked up a couple of typos as I read it, including, for example, in the caption for Figure 5. I therefore recommend a thorough recheck of all typos and grammar issues. Admittedly, these are easy to miss.
While I think the discussion in conclusion could have been expanded a little bit, I can understand that the authors may have chosen to remain curt in order to avoid coming across as 'editorialising'.
Nevertheless, I note (but our authors do not need to action this) that it is apparent how the scholarship is skewed by the angloshphere and especially, North American postmodernist literature. Personally, I could attribute this to the American academia's love affair with French theorists... One could argue that a certain 'Eurocentrism' has underpinned dominant discourse(s) in the field. This canonical, Eurocentric ouvre has coloured reality.
Much of the theoretical material produced by our colleagues over these decades may not be falsifyable; hence, there is room for ideological undercurrents impacting real-life discourses in, for example, policy formulations, geopolitics, and education, to name but a few (and the breadth of the literature under examination reveals).
Naturally, what I am suggesting here is not absolute and does not encompass every single text (many of which I have not studied in detail). Thus, authors should note that in sharing my thoughts, far from being dismissive of such vast intellectual effort, I am attempting to stand at a critical distance as much as possible.
Thank you again, and with best wishes for 2025!
PS. I also thank you for sharing the aggregated data spreadsheet, which was helpful.
Author Response
Comment 1: I say almost as I picked up a couple of typos as I read it, including, for example, in the caption for Figure 5. I therefore recommend a thorough recheck of all typos and grammar issues. Admittedly, these are easy to miss.
Response: We noted your observation regarding the need for a thorough recheck of typos and grammar issues, including the caption for Figure 5. We carefully reviewed the entire manuscript once again to ensure it was free from errors and maintained a high standard of academic rigor.
Comments 2: I note (but our authors do not need to action this) that it is apparent how the scholarship is skewed by the angloshphere and especially, North American postmodernist literature. Personally, I could attribute this to the American academia's love affair with French theorists... One could argue that a certain 'Eurocentrism' has underpinned dominant discourse(s) in the field. This canonical, Eurocentric ouvre has coloured reality.
Response 2: Your remarks about the influence of the Anglosphere, particularly North American postmodernist literature, and its interaction with French theorists, offer a profound reflection on the ideological undercurrents that may shape identity research. While this aspect was not within the primary scope of our paper, we acknowledge its significance and value your critical distance in approaching the broader intellectual frameworks at play. It highlights an area for further exploration, and your insights have provided us with an enriched perspective on how Eurocentrism and dominant discourses influence the field.
Comments 3: While I think the discussion in conclusion could have been expanded a little bit, I can understand that the authors may have chosen to remain curt in order to avoid coming across as 'editorialising'.
Response 3: We also appreciate your understanding of the concise nature of our conclusion. We deliberately kept the conclusion section focused and concise, as we have already provided targeted summaries and key takeaways at the end of each discussion topic throughout the manuscript. For example, each section within the Results and Discussion chapters concludes with specific findings, such as the trends in global publication patterns, the dominance of certain theoretical frameworks, and the structure of collaboration networks. This approach was taken to ensure that the overall conclusion did not become repetitive by reiterating what has already been detailed in these individual sections. Instead, the conclusion serves as a synthesis of the study’s broader implications and contributions, aligning with its primary objectives. By avoiding redundancy, we aimed to maintain clarity, coherence, and focus in presenting the final overarching insights of this research.
Comments 4: I also thank you for sharing the aggregated data spreadsheet, which was helpful.
Response 4: We are glad the aggregated data spreadsheet proved helpful, and we thank you for your kind words and constructive feedback throughout this process. Your engagement has been invaluable in helping us refine this manuscript.
Thank you once again for your time, insights, and encouragement. We wish you the very best for a healthy and fulfilling 2025.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a distinct improvement on the earlier submission. There are still two Figure 1, however,
There are a number of minor changes I’m suggesting need attending to, but also some particularly sections that I think need far less attention than you have given them. There are some valuable and interesting insights in the paper, but in your wish to present all your data and figures you include quite o lot of material that is inconclusive, imprecise, and puzzling. I Think if your focus is on fewer areas that have results that are relevant for the readers of this journal it will get read more. I suggest that some of the Figures be omitted for this reason, and others because they remain very difficult/impossible to read properly, largely because of he scale of the captions and the lack of sufficiently high resolution images.
- The study flow chart (Fig 1) says nothing that the text doesn’t address, better.
- The ‘Main information’ (Fig 1 again!) would be more legible as a simple list.
- The Country of Scientific production needs a key to explain what the colours represent, and conveys very little information (Fig 4 conveys it much better)
- on ‘the most relevant authors’, where you identify the ten most prolific authors in your data set. They may be prolific, but they are not necessarily the most relevant. One of them has no name, it seems, and is referred to as ‘JR’. This really won’t do – your reader want to be able to look them up, etc., and JR is impossible, and many of the others very difficult, to identify. Moreover, the data on H factors in figure 8 suggests that they may be prolific, but have very little impact on the academic community, with very little impact on the academic community. There are more detailed suggestions in the notes that follow. I would urge you to omit most of this (lines 465 - 521) , and to sort out the ‘JR’ references in Figs 4 and 5. I suspect it’s a data error.
- Similarly, the analysis in Fig 8 and lines from about 546 to 561 is undermining your case, and I think should be omitted.
- Table 2 would benefit from being set out where author, date and journal are set out in separate columns, using upper and lower case, and justified left. It’s currently very hard to read.
- Figure 11 shows nothing that is unexpected, is still partially illegible, and is better addressed in the data in Figure 12.
- Figure 12 still suffers from illegibility issues in the bottom right corner. It would convey the data better and more accurately as a list or table.
- The dendrogram (Fig 16) is only legible at a very high resolution on a computer screen; the associated Conceptual Map (Fig 15) does not explain the two dimensions that are employed. Some of the conclusions about grouping of thesmes are surprising, and are counter-intuitive, and I suspect can’t be explained at this level.
Id suggest serious consideration be given to whether these data be included at all, or given the prominence/length that they are given. Focusing on the remaining data, on the other hand, would resonate better (I think) with the intended readership. I’d urge a greater attention to the audience of this particular journal – social scientist with an interest in identities. Your approach seems to be to present everything you’ve found, without reference to what might be ‘significant’ (in the non statistical meaning) for your readers.
Detailed comments
The introduction is much improved and provided a clearer picture of identity studies. However:
Line 26 is over-precise. Identity has been discussed in the ways outlined here since aprox the late 1950.s. Suggest ‘The concept of identities has been explored in depth since the 1960s, and particularly since the 1980s, referring to’
Line 40: suggest ‘necessary’ rather than ‘imperative’
Para from line 40 to 53: A reference would be helpful. I’d suggest something from the following
Abdelal, R., Herrera, Y. M., Johnston, A. I., & McDermott, R. (2009). Introduction. In R. Abdelal, Y. M. Herrera, A. I. Johnston, & R. McDermott (Eds.), Measuring identity: A guide for social scientists (pp. 1–13). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fawcett, B. (2012). Poststructuralism. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (pp. 667–670). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412963909
Fisher et al https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1524896
Marcia, J. E. (2007). Theory and measure: The identity status interview. In M. Watzlawik & A. Born (Eds.), Capturing identity: Quantitative and qualitative methods (pp. 1–15). Lanham: University Press of America.
Omoniyi, T. (2006). Hierarchy of identities. In T. Onomiyi & G. White (Eds.), Sociolinguistics of identity (pp. 11–33). London: Continuum.
Oyserman, D., & James, L. (2011). Possible identities. In S. J. Schwartz, K. Luyckx, & V. L. Vignoles (Eds.), Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 117–145). New York: Springer.
Park, H. (2015). Learning identity: A sociocultural perspective. Adult Education Research Conference. http://newprairiepress.org/aerc/2015/papers/41
Line 81. I am pretty sure that [4], [11] and [18] did not mention bibliographic analysis anywhere in their writings. Suggest you omit! (or give page numbers!)
Line 101 & para: I would agree that bibliographic analysis can be a useful tool in some respects, but I think you are too sweeping here . Some items of your analysis are interesting – but others are banal. I suspect of social scientists interested in identity – which is your audience for this article will only find certain of you findings of value - I suggest the following should be emphasised
Fig 4, and Fig 5,
possibly Fig 7,
Fig 8,
possibly 9 and 10,
possibly Table 2, Fig 11 (although a table here would be easier to read)
Fig 12 but probably as a table with figures
Fig 14
Fig 13, but sorted out topics into relate groups (and some omissions)
perhaps Fig 15 if it was more legible,
Fig 16 remains a problem (legibility, and lack of naming of junctions. Fig 16 might be useful if (1) the words in the left hand column were of a legible size, and (2) if there were labels attached that named the linked branches, that identified the elements in the hierarchy
Figure 17 is particularly interesting, and bears strongly on your analysis in the introduction.
Fig 18 tells us a little, but needs greater elucidation.
I think that you might introduce the co-citation network (Fig 17) fairly early on – this will grab the reader’s attention (I’m not sure that at present readers would plow on to p 25!)
Lines 116-117 … yes, Covid 19 is emerging, but in terms of identities it’s so recent that one wouldn’t yet describe it as underexplored.
Lines 147-8 - I’m not sure this sentence is wise. I think you are primarily bibliographic analysts (this is not a criticism!) but are here presenting your material and analysis to colleagues in a different set of disciplines.
Line 183 What is the R-bibliometric package? Who devised it, when, used to what effect? How long has it been around, how’s it used? Your readers won’t know, I suspect – and there are no clues (references!) to where they can find out. Tell us now, not relegated to line 270+.
Your research questions list (lines 190 to 201). I suggest that (even at this stage in the paper) you suggest that some of these are more usefully answered than others; give the sections/page numbers where each is addressed (thus using this list as section markers), and indicate how successful you have been in each question area.
Lines 203-222 list your goals. This list seems to have been forgotten (or not clearly referenced) in your conclusions. Given you set out your research questions, do you also need goals of the study?
The methodology is usefully improved. However, I’m not sure what data Scopus gave you … there would be clearly more that 18,000 documents mentioning it in the texts; is this a reference in the title, to the keywords, to the abstracts, or to the bibliography of each paper? Was the actual full text of each paper analysed?
Line 260 (Fig 1) – this is, I think, the least useful figure. The increasing size of the blue circles suggests the scope is widening as we move in the arrow’s direction, whereas in fact there are (I think) fewer items included as you move forward to the tight? You say nearly all of this in your text.
Line 270! Ah! A reference to the bibliographic analysis process. (It’s odd that we wait for your final four references to see the basic data about the process … and presumably all the authors who wrote papers prior 2017 or so (not all the items in the references are dated) could not have been considering bibliographic analysis – see my comment on line 81 above.
Figure 1 ((the one at line 322) could be in a simple table - more legible.
Figure 2: how do you know the country of scientific production (‘of’ is missing in title of the figure)? Is this the location of publication? Its not easy to know where this work was done when looking at Journal data – do you have it. The map is really redundant – you could say virtually all this in 3 o3 four lines. Though if you include it, a key is necessary – what do the colours mean?
Figure 3. Surely this is an almost inevitable result. The earliest papers in the decade are cited ore often, the later publications less often. How could it be otherwise? Lines 361 to 365 provide the rather obvious explanation for he main trend. The rather erratic first part of the line can only be explained with some speculation.
The Sankey diagram and three field plot. So usefully – the major journals in the field, with a bit of speculation about why this is so. We get an idea of this ranking of each in terms of articles published (if we can read the tiny writing (and uncapitalised titles). But the countries of authors? Is this the institutions in which they are based (The most accessible data, I’d guess?). Does this reference where the authors are from (origin), or where they work and publish from? Doesn’t this show how the US, UK , Australia and Canada sweep up the global market, and the effect of English being the de facto language of communication? Is this is any way significant for any bibliographic analysis in any field?
The authors are problematic. You give surnames and initials – we don’t really know who they are. I did track down a Seth Schwartz and the University of Texas, but there are other contenders 9this Schwartz has an H 10 factor of 125, see Fig 8). And one author is simply ‘JR’ – how can this be so? Have some sets of initials been detached from names? Who is JR? Li X is equally untraceable? Figure 4 does give rise to a lot of questions about the validity of some of the data.
(There’s also an interesting lack of correlation between the bandwidth of journals in Figure 4 and the numbers of documents published in the same journals listed in Figure 5.) I don’t think you can necessarily describe these as ‘top’ academic journals contributing to the field ( line 428) – merely the most prolific. As I suggested much earlier , Figs 4 and 5 are among the most useful – but my comments suggest that the text on pp 9 to 11 does need some tidying up.
Line 493: I really think that identifying someone who apparently publishes leading articles under the name JR needs challenging. Something’s gone wrong with your data and analysis here, that should be obvious, need sorting out, and really undermines your claims in lines 147-8. I’d really omit lines 493 to 524 in toto.
Equally the Lofka’s law analysis and the h factor data is really problematic. You identify these 10 characters as dominating the field in this decade, with 182 papers between them – and then produce these strangely low h factors. So the prolific JR produces 43 articles, with an h factor of 7. So a mere 7 articles of 43 (at most, disregarding any earlier publications) have been cited 7 times or more. (I’m not sure how you have calculated these H factors, given your limited data (only that concerning identity.) You rightly point out (line 562) that H factor doesn’t distinguish high productivity from influence. It clearly doesn’t do so here – but you are identifying these 10 as the ‘top authors’ (line 501: clearly, they are not perceived a such by many of their peers. Again, I would downplay the significance, and make it shorter. Lines 569-575 say it all, and need to be prominent!
By contrast, Table 2 does present data of interest that contradicts your apparent findings above. But the Table is untidy and difficult to read. Separate the authors from dates and journal titles). Use upper and lower case appropriately. Justify columns left. Justify dois. And I think give the full titles of the journals. The disparity between your ten top authors having so few citations, and the numbers here is striking – there’s no overlap between the two lists, I think?
Figure 11 remains hard to read. At maximum magnification, the word in light green, between the ‘ti’ if Identity and the ‘a’ of human is illegible. It’s pretty, but the six largest words tell us nothing about the field. You’ve tried hard in lines 642-643, but the comments are really so ‘obvious’ - you really appear to be struggling to comment on this in a meaningful way – because it’s an impossible task. You could do that numerically, to more point.
Figure 12 is possibly of more value (though the lower right hand corner contains four words that cannot be read). The data could be presented as a table, with legible names and some numbers, and be more valuable, I think.
The trend topics – I appreciate it’s been refined since the previous iteration – but is it really useful in this format? It is over-reliant on precise wording (thus Great Britain and the United Kingdom are separated . The terms are also all mixed together – geographical locations, methods – it’s hard to make sense of. And you do try hard to do so in your narrative between lines 683 to 711. But I’m not sure that the mixture of topic types helps – what does the inclusion Spain, for example, tell us? Could it tell us? You would do better, with less distraction, if Figure 13 was omitted, and you simply described the data that you do (well!) in words.
The Conceptual Structure map is insufficiently explained. Where do these themes come from? Are they defined by the authors of all these texts, or from lists of key concepts (which are generated by the authors, but are rather circumscribed by journal’s definitions and requirements). How are they then associated in Figure 15. Two ‘dimensions’ are given on the axes of Fog 15, but the dimensions are not described, and how are they quantified to be represented in a the Map? This is made more complicated by the Dendrogram (Figure 16) This is not readable other than when highly magnified on a computer screen. It is described in the text (lines 782 to 839), but this doesn’t really help an analysis of what is being associated with what. Religion and immigrant are seemingly linked together, and then language is added to this at the next level. These are then linked to a grouping of ethnicity and the UK. These apparent patterns are not simply counter-intuitive (there must be many references about religious identity that are not concerned with immigrants, etc) , but linking language identity to just ethnicity/uk, and then having these themes not related to any other grouping till the highest level? This either need a more critical analysis, or could be omitted.
Figure 17 was the most interesting data. In my view, it need more prominence, perhaps earlier in the article. It sustains the introduction. It would help if al the names were more legible
The international collaboration figure 18 is also interesting.
Response
Comment Reviewer:
- The study flow chart (Fig 1) says nothing that the text doesn’t address, beAer.
- The ‘Main information’ (Fig 1 again!) would be more legible as a simple list.
Response:
We have added a detailed explanation for Figure 1 in lines 262–273 to provide clearer context and
support for the visual representation. Additionally, we have revised the figure into a simpler and more
straightforward format, enhancing readability and ensuring it complements the text effectively.
Comment Reviewer:
The Country of Scientific production needs a key to explain what the colours represent, and conveys
very liAle information (Fig 4 conveys it much beAer)
Response:
We have revised the Country of Scientific Production figure by adding a key to clarify the meaning of
the colors for beAer interpretation. Additionally, we have relocated the figure closer to the explanation
of Figure 4 to enhance coherence and ensure that the data is presented in a more meaningful and
accessible manner.
Comment reviewer:
1. on ‘the most relevant authors’, where you identify the ten most prolific authors in your data set.
They may be prolific, but they are not necessarily the most relevant. One of them has no name,
it seems, and is referred to as ‘JR’. This really won’t do – your reader want to be able to look
them up, etc., and JR is impossible, and many of the others very difficult, to identify. Moreover,
the data on H factors in figure 8 suggests that they may be prolific, but have very liAle impact
on the academic community, with very liAle impact on the academic community. There are more
detailed suggestions in the notes that follow. I would urge you to omit most of this (lines 465 -
521) , and to sort out the ‘JR’ references in Figs 4 and 5. I suspect it’s a data error.
2. Similarly, the analysis in Fig 8 and lines from about 546 to 561 is undermining your case, and I
think should be omiAed.
Response:
Thank you for your meticulous and insightful review. Based on your comments, I have carefully
examined the original dataset extracted from the Scopus database in CSV format. However, no specific
author corresponding to the initials "JR" was found. Despite this, the bibliometric analysis conducted in
R Studio continued to detect publications aAributed to "JR." To avoid unsubstantiated claims, I have
removed the reference to "JR" from the analysis and clarified this adjustment in lines 460–483.
Additionally, I have replaced "JR" with Schwarb SJ as the most prolific author while still acknowledging
"JR" as a unique finding within the dataset. Given these revisions, I have also decided to reduce the
inclusion of figures related to Author Productivity through Lotka’s Law and Authors' Local Impact by
H Index, as excluding "JR" from the bibliometric analysis is not feasible. I appreciate your detailed
observations, which have greatly contributed to improving the clarity and rigor of this study.
Comment reviewer:
Table 2 would benefit from being set out where author, date and journal are set out in separate columns,
using upper and lower case, and justified left. It’s currently very hard to read
Response:
We have revised Table 2 following the reviewer's suggestions. The table has been reforma8ed to
separate the author, date, and journal into distinct columns, ensuring be8er readability. Additionally,
we have applied proper upper and lower case formaAing and left-justified the text to improve
alignment.
Comment reviewer:
Figure 11 shows nothing that is unexpected, is still partially illegible, and is beAer addressed in the data
in Figure 12.
Figure 12 still suffers from illegibility issues in the boAom right corner. It would convey the data beAer
and more accurately as a list or table.
Response:
Figure 11 (now Figure 9) has been enlarged to improve readability.
Figure 12 (now Figure 10) has also been enlarged to enhance legibility, particularly in the bottom right
corner. We attempted to present the data in a table format; however, it occupied too much space, so we
decided not to include it.
Comment reviewer
The dendrogram (Fig 16) is only legible at a very high resolution on a computer screen; the associated
Conceptual Map (Fig 15) does not explain the two dimensions that are employed. Some of the
conclusions about grouping of thesmes are surprising, and are counter-intuitive, and I suspect can’t be
explained at this level.
Response:
The dendrogram (now Figure 14) does present readability challenges. To improve legibility, we have
placed it on a full-page layout, but it still requires effort to read clearly. This issue arises because the
database we analyzed is extensive, resulting in a more detailed and intricate dendrogram that
accommodates numerous concepts. Removing it would be unfortunate, as this table is crucial for
illustrating the interconnections between concepts.
Regarding the associated Conceptual Map (now Figure 13), we have provided an explanation in lines
665–693.
Comment reviewer:
Line 40: suggest ‘necessary’ rather than ‘imperative’
Response:
We have made the correction.
Comment reviewer:
Line 81. I am preAy sure that [4], [11] and [18] did not mention bibliographic analysis anywhere in their
writings. Suggest you omit! (or give page numbers!)
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's observation. We have removed references [4], [11], and
[18] as they do not explicitly mention bibliographic analysis. This adjustment ensures that
all cited references accurately support the claims made in the text.
Comment reviewer:
Lines 116-117 … yes, Covid 19 is emerging, but in terms of identities it’s so recent that one wouldn’t yet
describe it as underexplored.
Response:
We acknowledge the reviewer's concern regarding the characterization of COVID-19 as an
"underexplored" topic in identity research. However, as illustrated in Figure [Trend Topics], COVID-19
has only recently emerged as a relevant theme within identity studies. The frequency and distribution
of terms across time indicate that discussions on identity in relation to COVID-19 are still developing,
with increasing aAention in recent years.
While COVID-19 has been widely studied in various fields, its implications for identity construction,
negotiation, and transformation remain relatively new and evolving. The long-term impact of the
pandemic on social identity, cultural belonging, and psychological adaptation continues to unfold,
making it an area that still requires further exploration.
Therefore, while COVID-19 is no longer a novel phenomenon, its influence on identity-related
discussions is an emerging and expanding field, warranting deeper investigation.
Reviewer comment:
Lines 147-8 - I’m not sure this sentence is wise. I think you are primarily bibliographic analysts (this is
not a criticism!) but are here presenting your material and analysis to colleagues in a different set of
disciplines.
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's observation and acknowledge the importance of disciplinary perspectives
in interpreting our findings. While our primary approach is bibliometric analysis, our aim is to present
insights that are relevant across disciplines, particularly in the broader discourse on identity research.
We recognize that different fields may approach identity from varying theoretical and methodological
standpoints, and we have made efforts to ensure that our analysis remains accessible and valuable to
scholars from diverse backgrounds.
Comment reviewer:
Line 183 What is the R-bibliometric package? Who devised it, when, used to what effect? How long has
it been around, how’s it used? Your readers won’t know, I suspect – and there are no clues (references!)
to where they can find out. Tell us now, not relegated to line 270+.
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's comment and acknowledge the need to provide a clearer introduction to
the R-bibliometrix package earlier in the manuscript. To address this, we will move the explanation
forward and provide relevant references at the first mention in line 183. The bibliometrix package is an
R-based tool developed by Aria and Cuccurullo (2017) to facilitate bibliometric analysis, including
performance analysis, science mapping, and network analysis. It has been widely used in various fields
to analyze publication trends, citation networks, and thematic evolution. Given its increasing adoption
in scholarly research, we recognize the importance of briefly explaining its purpose, applications, and
significance within the context of our study. We will ensure that these details, along with appropriate
citations, are included in the revised manuscript to improve clarity for readers unfamiliar with the tool.
Comment reviewer
Lines 203-222 list your goals. This list seems to have been forgotten (or not clearly referenced) in your
conclusions. Given you set out your research questions, do you also need goals of the study?
Response:
We alignment between our stated goals and the conclusions. To address this, we will ensure that the
discussion explicitly references the goals outlined in lines 241-298 and demonstrates how they have been
addressed throughout the study. Additionally, we acknowledge the potential redundancy between the
research questions and the study goals. We will carefully review both sections to assess whether
maintaining separate goals adds clarity and depth to our study or if they should be more explicitly
integrated into the research questions. Our aim is to ensure coherence and consistency in our study's
structure while effectively guiding readers through our analytical framework and conclusions.
Comment Reviewer:
The methodology is usefully improved. However, I’m not sure what data Scopus gave you … there
would be clearly more that 18,000 documents mentioning it in the texts; is this a reference in the title, to
the keywords, to the abstracts, or to the bibliography of each paper? Was the actual full text of each paper
analysed?
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's feedback on our methodology and the request for clarification regarding
our data collection process. In this study, we employed bibliometric analysis, which relies on metadata
retrieved from Scopus rather than full-text analysis. The 18,399 documents included in our dataset were
identified based on occurrences in titles, abstracts, and keywords, ensuring relevance to our research
focus. Our search criteria were structured to include documents indexed in Scopus using the keyword
string ALL (identity) within the time frame of 2013 to 2024, and were limited to articles within the Social
Sciences and Arts & Humanities subject areas. The refinement process further identified 4,559 sources
and 29,550 contributing authors. For the analysis, we utilized bibliometric software, Biblioshiny, and R
Studio 4.2.2, which enabled us to map citation networks, co-authorship patterns, and keyword cooccurrences.
The results focused on key aspects such as subject categories, documents and authorship
patterns, journal country affiliations, and the thematic evolution of identity-related research. As
bibliometric methods primarily rely on structured bibliographic metadata, our approach does not
involve full-text analysis but rather examines citation relationships and keyword trends to reveal the
broader scholarly discourse. To improve transparency and clarity, we will explicitly state the scope of
our dataset in the methodology section and reference Figure 1 to provide a clear overview of our search
strategy and analytical framework.
Comment reviewer:
Line 260 (Fig 1) – this is, I think, the least useful figure. The increasing size of the blue circles suggests
the scope is widening as we move in the arrow’s direction, whereas in fact there are (I think) fewer items
included as you move forward to the tight? You say nearly all of this in your text.
Response:
Thank you for your valuable feedback. We have revised Figure 1 to be much simpler and more intuitive,
ensuring better clarity and eliminating potential misinterpretations. The updated figure now accurately
represents the intended progression without visual ambiguity, aligning more clearly with the
explanation provided in the text.
Comment reviewer:
Line 270! Ah! A reference to the bibliographic analysis process. (It’s odd that we wait for your final four
references to see the basic data about the process … and presumably all the authors who wrote papers
prior 2017 or so (not all the items in the references are dated) could not have been considering
bibliographic analysis – see my comment on line 81 above.
Response:
Thank you for your valuable feedback. We acknowledge the concern regarding the placement of the
bibliographic analysis process within the manuscript. Our intention was to first present the broader
context of identity research before detailing the methodology.
Regarding the inclusion of references to works published before 2017, we acknowledge that these
authors may not have explicitly considered bibliographic analysis. However, their contributions remain
significant in shaping the discourse on identity research, which later became the subject of bibliometric
examination. Our approach seeks to trace the evolution of this body of knowledge, demonstrating how
earlier works have influenced subsequent developments in the field. Nonetheless, we will refine our
discussion to beAer clarify the relevance of these references in relation to our methodological framework.
Comment reviewer:
Figure 1 ((the one at line 322) could be in a simple table - more legible.
Response:
Thank you for the suggestion. We have revised Figure 1 into a simpler table format to improve
readability and clarity.
Comment reviewer:
Figure 2, how do you know the country of scientific production (‘of’ is missing in title of the figure)? Is
this the location of publication? Its not easy to know where this work was done when looking at Journal
data – do you have it. The map is really redundant – you could say virtually all this in 3 o3 four lines.
Though if you include it, a key is necessary – what do the colours mean?
Response:
To enhance the clarity and comprehensiveness of Figure 2, we have included a table listing the top 10
countries with the highest publication frequencies. Additionally, we have revised our analysis to provide
a more in-depth interpretation of these findings. This ensures that the data is presented in a more concise
and informative manner while maintaining the visual representation for broader context.
Reviewer comment:
The authors are problematic. You give surnames and initials – we don’t really know who they are. I did
track down a Seth Schwarb and the University of Texas, but there are other contenders 9this Schwarb
has an H 10 factor of 125, see Fig 8). And one author is simply ‘JR’ – how can this be so? Have some sets
of initials been detached from names? Who is JR? Li X is equally untraceable? Figure 4 does give rise to
a lot of questions about the validity of some of the data.
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's concerns regarding author identification and data validity. In response, we
have conducted a thorough verification and correction of author names, ensuring greater accuracy in
their representation. Specifically, for the author labeled as "JR", we have identified discrepancies and
have revised the data accordingly in Figure 6, providing clearer aAribution where possible.
Reviewer Comment:
Line 493: I really think that identifying someone who apparently publishes leading articles under the
name JR needs challenging. Something’s gone wrong with your data and analysis here, that should be
obvious, need sorting out, and really undermines your claims in lines 147-8. I’d really omit lines 493 to
524 in toto.
Equally the Lofka’s law analysis and the h factor data is really problematic. You identify these 10
characters as dominating the field in this decade, with 182 papers between them – and then produce
these strangely low h factors. So the prolific JR produces 43 articles, with an h factor of 7. So a mere 7
articles of 43 (at most, disregarding any earlier publications) have been cited 7 times or more. (I’m not
sure how you have calculated these H factors, given your limited data (only that concerning identity.)
You rightly point out (line 562) that H factor doesn’t distinguish high productivity from influence. It
clearly doesn’t do so here – but you are identifying these 10 as the ‘top authors’ (line 501: clearly, they
are not perceived a such by many of their peers. Again, I would downplay the significance, and make it
shorter. Lines 569-575 say it all, and need to be prominent!
Response:
We sincerely appreciate the reviewer’s feedback regarding the author labeled as "JR" and the concerns
about data accuracy. Following a thorough review and correction process, we have removed JR from the
dataset and revised the relevant sections accordingly. This adjustment ensures the integrity and
reliability of our bibliometric analysis. Furthermore, we have carefully refined our author identification
methodology, cross-checking data to eliminate potential discrepancies. The revised Figure 6 now
presents a more accurate representation of the most relevant authors in identity research. In light of these
corrections, we have also omiAed lines 493 to 524, as suggested, to maintain clarity and avoid any
misleading claims. We appreciate the reviewer's insights, which have significantly contributed to
improving the rigor of our analysis.
Comment reviewer:
By contrast, Table 2 does present data of interest that contradicts your apparent findings above. But the
Table is untidy and difficult to read. Separate the authors from dates and journal titles). Use upper and
lower case appropriately. Justify columns left. Justify dois. And I think give the full titles of the journals.
The disparity between your ten top authors having so few citations, and the numbers here is striking –
there’s no overlap between the two lists, I think?
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's detailed feedback regarding Table 2 and have revised it accordingly to
improve clarity and readability. The table has been reformatted by separating authors, publication dates,
and journal titles into distinct columns, ensuring a more structured presentation. Additionally, we have:
Applied proper upper and lower case formatting for consistency, Left-justified all text columns for better
alignment, Justified DOIs to enhance clarity, Provided the full journal titles to ensure transparency.
Furthermore, we acknowledge the reviewer's observation regarding the disparity between the top 10
authors and citation counts. We have conducted a thorough review of our dataset and confirmed that
this discrepancy arises from variations in citation impact versus publication volume. The revised version
of Table 2 now presents a clearer comparison, and we have addressed this issue in our discussion to
provide further clarification.
Comment reviewer:
Figure 11 remains hard to read. At maximum magnification, the word in light green, between the ‘ti’ if
Identity and the ‘a’ of human is illegible. It’s pretty, but the six largest words tell us nothing about the
field. You’ve tried hard in lines 642-643, but the comments are really so ‘obvious’ - you really appear to
be struggling to comment on this in a meaningful way – because it’s an impossible task. You could do
that numerically, to more point.
Response:
Thank you for the reviewer's feedback. Figure 11 (now Figure 9) has been revised to improve readability,
ensuring that all terms are legible, even at different magnifications. Additionally, we have conducted a
more in-depth numerical analysis to complement the visual representation, addressing the limitations
of purely qualitative interpretation.
To enhance clarity and analytical depth, we have incorporated quantitative frequency data for the most
prominent terms, aligning it with the broader thematic trends in identity research. This approach
provides a more meaningful discussion, moving beyond surface-level observations and offering deeper
insights into dominant research areas, methodological approaches, and emerging trends. The updated
analysis ensures that the word cloud visualization serves as a complementary tool, rather than the sole
basis for interpretation, allowing for a more rigorous and data-driven discussion.
Comment reviewer:
The trend topics – I appreciate it’s been refined since the previous iteration – but is it really useful in this
format? It is over-reliant on precise wording (thus Great Britain and the United Kingdom are separated
. The terms are also all mixed together – geographical locations, methods – it’s hard to make sense of.
And you do try hard to do so in your narrative between lines 683 to 711. But I’m not sure that the mixture
of topic types helps – what does the inclusion Spain, for example, tell us? Could it tell us? You would do
beAer, with less distraction, if Figure 13 was omiAed, and you simply described the data that you do
(well!) in words.
Response:
We appreciate the reviewer's critical insights regarding the trend topics visualization and its
interpretability. In response to these concerns, we have refined our analysis comprehensively to enhance
clarity and relevance. Rather than relying solely on the visual representation, we have provided a deeper,
structured narrative discussion that categorizes the key trends into thematic clusters, distinguishing
between geographical locations, methodologies, and conceptual frameworks.
To address the issue of over-reliance on precise wording, we have carefully reviewed and consolidated
related terms, ensuring consistency in representation (e.g., "Great Britain" and "United Kingdom").
Additionally, we have reassessed the significance of geographic terms, such as "Spain," to contextualize
their relevance within the broader discourse on regional identity studies and geopolitical influences on
research output.
We recognize that the mixed nature of topics may have previously introduced challenges in
interpretation. To mitigate this, we have structured our discussion to highlight the relationships between
different research trends and their evolution over time. While the figure provides a visual complement
to the analysis, the primary emphasis is now placed on a coherent, data-driven narrative that effectively
communicates the key developments in identity research.
