Mapping the 'weather and crime' research domain.

The visualization of research domains through scientific mapping techniques can have many implications for theory, research, and practice. Using a variety of search engines and academic databases, 103 scholarly publications produced between 1899 and 2007 were collected on a minority topic in the behavioral sciences — the effects of weather, climate, and seasonality on crime, violence, and other types of aggressive behavior. The data consisted of the number of citation counts between each publication within this sample, which were recorded in a spreadsheet database and then analyzed using a social network analysis software package. The results in this citation analysis identified key researchers in this field and their collaboration patterns, influential publications on the topic, and various gaps, trends, and concentrations in the research. Such findings are especially useful to help guide future research agendas, create or merge theories, identify experts on particular specialties, facilitate scholarly collaborations, expose connections between other research domains, and track advances in knowledge over time.