  This paper presents and evaluates a set of methods to classify individual
Scopus publications using their references back to the second generation, where
each publication can be assigned fractionally into up to five ASJC (All Science
Journal Classifications) categories, excluding the Multidisciplinary area and
the miscellaneous categories. Based on proposals by Glanzel et al. (1999a,
1999b, 2021), some additional parameters are established that allow different
results to be obtained depending on how category membership is weighted or how
the acceptance thresholds for multiple assignments are established. Various
classifications are obtained, and then compared with each other, with the
original ASJC Scopus journal classification, and with the AAC (Authors
Assignation Collection) classification of a previous study (Alvarez-Llorente et
al., 2023) in which the papers corresponding authors assign them the most
appropriate categories. Classifications in which a high threshold is set for
allowing assignments to multiple categories, combined with the use of first-
and second-generation references and averaging over the number of references,
provide the most promising results, improving over other reference-based
reclassification proposals in terms of granularity, and over the Scopus
classification itself in such aspects as the homogeneity of the publications
assigned to a category. They also show greater coincidence with the AAC
classification.
