The methodological basis of legal cytology is empirical positivism, i.e., the social empirical investigation method is employed to make a quantitative analysis on legal research papers. Cytology has limitation in methodology, behind which a complicated “knowledge-power” structure exists. Considering the matter in China’s present legal citation researches, the real quality of legal papers shall not be evaluated by the citation rate simply, but establishing a localized academic evaluation system to scale it comprehensively.