Finding Main Paths of a Research Subject: a Thorough Demonstration?Key Problems Solving And a Case Study of Main-Path Study Itself

Abstract

The main paths show the key events and key publications of a research subject.
Finding main paths for a research subject could help scholars quickly grasp the main
developing trajectory of the corresponding subject and thus plays an important role.
Several previous studies have aimed to solve the existed technical problems, in order
that a more perfect main paths finding method can be obtained. On the other hand,
plenty of empirical main path analysis have also been launched to gain insights into
various research subjects. However, some technical problems are still not addressed
or clearly illustrated. For example, there still have no definite methods to obtain a
comparatively more complete dataset based on which main paths will be found, and
there also have no definite methods to transform a cyclic paper citation network into
an acyclic one, after which main paths finding technique could be used. At least, none
of these two problems has been illustrated exactly in detail. Furthermore, the main
path analysis method has always been used as a black box, and no studies have
illustrated in detail that how to obtain main paths for a research subject step by step.
Thus, beginners, who just start to launch main path studies or who come from
different research backgrounds and use main path analysis as a technical tool in order
to contribute in their own research subject, could easily be confused. This could
hinder the rapid development and widely use of main path studies. To address these
problems, this paper demonstrates systematically that how to find main paths, in
order that beginners or scholars of various research subject could grasp and use this
technique easily; proposes the backward-forward data collection method, in order that
a comparatively more complete dataset can be obtained; proposes a technical method
to transform an acyclic network into a cyclic one, based on the directional property of
knowledge flows. The empirical main path analysis in this study is launched for the
research subject of the main-path study itself, and the empirical result could also be
beneficial for scholars who are interested in main path studies. Some internal
mechanisms of the SCI2 software which is used to construct the direct paper citation
network in this study are also explained in detail.