Seientometries, Vol. 11. Nos 1-2 [1987) 59-70 THE AUTHOR AND THE BEHOLDER: HOW PARADIGM COMMITMENTS CAN INFLUENCE THE INTERPRETATION OF RESEARCH RESULTS LEA VELHO Centre de Estudos era Politica de Ciencia e Tecnologia Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cienttfico e Tecnologico - CNPq MCT - SAS Q.5 - Bloco H - 8 andar 70 000, Brasilia 1). F. (BrazilJ (Received April 23, 1986) This article is a reply to Moravesik's interpretation of my results on Brazilian agricultural research. The argument here is that publication and citation data obtained within a specific country can hardly be compared to those offered by international databases such as that of ISI. Furthermore, publication and citation data must he inter- preted in the light of qualitative information if they are to be of any use for science policy. Finally, the conclusions drawn in my previous paper axe reinforced here by the supplying of additional information. Introduction In a recent article Moravcsik I has presented what he called a possible reinterpre- tation of my results on Brazilian agricultural research. 2 In so doing, Moravcsik has concentrated on the data tables presented in my previous article. Concerning the in- terpretation of the figures reported in those tables we seem to have diametrically opposing views. Whereas I considered the percentage of references from advanced country agricultural scientists to the work of their Brazilian and Third World colleagues to be small Moravcsik believes it to be high. The same applies to the references of Brazilian agricultural scientists to their colleagues working outside their own institutions within the country. Such disagreement notwithstanding, it must be stressed that it was not my aim in the previous article to discuss why and in which grounds I interpreted the figures reported as being small. The interest there was to explore the extent to which cita- tion counts may be taken as valid indicators of quality, influence or impact of publishe d scientific knowledge in the general context of a scientifically peripheral country. In this endeavour, the main argument used was that social factors, both in- ternal and external to the science system, play an important role in shaping citation patterns in science. Thus the core of the paper deals with identifying factors "external" Scientometrics 11 (1987) Elsevier, Amsterdam-Oxford-New York Akad~miai Kiad6, Budapest