Chinese Articles in PLoS Have a Citation Disadvantage
An investigation by the 5GH Team reveals that PLoS articles with a Chinese first author have a citation disadvantage.
In 2025, PLoS ONE published 19,616 articles, of which 4,735 (about 24%) have a Chinese first author. As of recently, these 4,735 articles have received an average of 1.81 citations each, ranking 34th among the nations that published more than 20 articles in PLoS ONE in 2025.
Chinese articles published over the last decade exhibit a similar citation performance, ranking about 30th globally, although Chinese authors publish thousands of articles in PLoS ONE every year. Please find the Supporting Information for details.
Chinese articles published in other PLoS journals appear to suffer from a similar disadvantage. For example, Chinese authors have published 863 articles in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, ranking 4th worldwide in terms of publication volume. However, those 863 articles have received an average of 25.88 citations each, ranking 102nd. Please find the Supporting Information for more details from other PLoS journals.
These findings are part of an ongoing investigation into the citation performance of the research articles by Chinese authors. During last decade, articles by Chinese authors contributed a high proportion of academic publications, however, their citation performance remains unclear. The investigation on PLoS journal suggests that those articles' performance is not as good as expected.
Reference