Large Language Models for Citation Function Classification

Daniel Vodička, Pavel Kral, Christophe Cerisara, Jakub Šmíd


Abstract
Citation function classification plays a crucial role in understanding the relationships between scientific publications and advancing bibliometric analysis. This study presents one of the first comprehensive evaluations of multiple state-of-the-art (SOTA) large language models (LLMs) for citation function classification, achieving new SOTA results on the ACL-ARC dataset. We systematically compare five models (Mistral 7B, Orca 2-7B, LLaMA 3.1-8B, Falcon 7B, and SciBERT) across zero-shot, few-shot, and fine-tuning approaches. Our fine-tuned Falcon 7B model achieves a 73,3% macro F1 score on ACL-ARC, representing a significant improvement over previous methods. Additionally, we introduce AC3, a novel dataset featuring a seven-category annotation scheme that distinguishes between neutral acknowledgments and explicit evaluative stances (more opinion-oriented citations – criticizing, complimenting, contradicting). The dataset is implemented across four context extraction variants to systematically evaluate the impact of contextual scope on classification performance. We also provide detailed analysis of model performance, experimental configurations, and limitations to guide future research in this domain. To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies dedicated to comprehensive model comparison for citation function classification, addressing a gap identified in recent surveys.
Anthology ID:
2026.lrec-1.191
Volume:
Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference
Month:
May
Year:
2026
Address:
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Editors:
Stelios Piperidis, Núria Bel, Henk van den Heuvel, Nancy Ide, Simon Krek, Antonio Toral
Venue:
LREC
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA Language Resource Association
Note:
Pages:
2430–2439
Language:
External URL:
https://lrec.elra.info/lrec2026-main-191
DOI:
10.63317/4sb25z5kxz3q
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Daniel Vodička, Pavel Kral, Christophe Cerisara, and Jakub Šmíd. 2026. Large Language Models for Citation Function Classification. In Proceedings of the Fifteenth Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, pages 2430–2439, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. ELRA Language Resource Association.
Cite (Informal):
Large Language Models for Citation Function Classification (Vodička et al., LREC 2026)
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