Survey of metrical studies using articles as the unit of analysis. The intention is to of introduce and comment on the present practice of such studies in Brazil. Fifty four studies were selected, published in 2011 and 2012. Data were collected in four sources: Annals of the EBBC 2012, Annals of the Enancib 2012/GT-7 2012; ABDCM, a Brazilian data base comprising national Information Science periodicals and Scielo-BR. Variables considered were: theme and context; objectives from a bibliometric point of view; aspects measured; number of years examined; number of registers examined; data bases consulted. Results show that the studies examined were mostly applied studies describing the production of documents in specific areas of knowledge and the description of that literature. In lesser quantity, there were studies focusing on authors, their production and forms of collaboration (co-authorship and social networkss) to produce knowledge, and their use of knowledge by way of citations. Several databases were used by these studies, such as the Web of Science and Scopus, but also Brazilian bases. Studies covered different spans of time, mostly up to 12 years, all relatively recent.