citation analysis of the sources of m.sc thesis in the field of agriculture at bu-ali sina university during 2001-2011

citation analysis is one of the most common techniques of bibliometrics in which the governing rules between the citing document and the cited document are studied. in other words, citation analysis is mainly based on who cites to whom.the aim of this research is to determine citation behavior of writers of m.sc thesis at agriculture field, and to specify behavioral patterns, informational thematic, and temporal that are used by them.this is a bibliometrics research(by use of citation analysis technique) that uses content analysis method. statistical population of this research includes all of the present citations at reference section of bu-ali sina university m.sc thesis of agriculture field during years of 2001-2011(3370 citations). the required information was compiled by use of special cards, open field and library studies and defects were eliminated by visiting different websites and :union: catalogue of libraries of bu-ali sina university. afterwards data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, and using spss19, excel 2007. books (38.45%) were the most important sources after publications (45.48%), and researchers have cited to old sources. 5 persian magazines and 4 latin magazines have been recognized as core journals. cooperative mentality of writers is weak. the most citations have been in persian language sources, and the most important countries from the viewpoint of geographical distribution are iran, america, and england.collegians don’t have enough familiarity with english language, and citation to native sources is more than foreign ones. the half life of whole books and journals was calculated as 13 years.