**4. Discussion**

#### **4.1. Epistemological characteristics**

The domain-level investigation revealed the following characteristics of published research in scientometrics. First, scientometrics research is multidisciplinary. Multiple disciplines such as "psychology, education, health" and "medicine, medical, clinical" are engaged in advancing knowledge in the domain. In particular, computer and information sciences had the largest influence on the emergence and development of scientific knowledge. The assignment of WoS categories also evidenced the multidisciplinarity of scientometrics as a variety of domains such as social sciences, engineering, medical and health sciences, and environmental sciences have contributed to the growth of the field. Second, scientometrics is not yet fully interdisciplinary as shown in the finding that research frontiers from "medicine, medical, clinical" largely cites from similar domains. Examining domain-level citation patterns in consideration with the WoS category assignment obtained a solid overview of the publication profile of the field. It revealed the growth of the domain by visualizing the distribution of citation trajectories at a disciplinary level, adding richer contexts with examining the distribution of WoS category assignment. Finally, most of the landmark articles were published relatively recently, namely after 2004 in spite of the long history of the domain. We argue that the domain's maturation is still ongoing.

#### **4.2. Historic footprint and emerging technologies**

The analysis of keywords, topic models, and document clusters identified the following thematic patterns in scientometrics research. In the beginning some researchers focused on employing citation analysis to measure the impact of a science. Another effort focused on the evaluation of performance and productivity of research, employing scientometrics approaches. The identification of patterns in scientific collaboration was also among the important themes. The other effort had interest in modeling scientometrics laws and proposing scientometric indicators and impact measures. Recently, applications of scientometrics approaches to a variety of domains such as material sciences, medicine, and environmental sciences have received increasing attention. In reverse, practical applications of social media analytics to scientometrics is also receiving the most recent interest. Impact measure and science mapping are among the canonical research themes receiving consistent attention from the beginning of the domain.
