Characteristics of frequently cited articles in mental retardation.

The purpose of this article was to identify and characterize prominent journal publications in the field of mental retardation from 1976 to 1985. Based on the frequency of citations in the Social Science Citation Index, 24 prominent articles were identified. Prominent (i.e., frequently cited) articles were compared with randomly selected articles on a number of characteristics (e.g., funding source, research, design, statistical method). Implications related to the characteristics and quality of articles that influence the mental retardation field were discussed.