i was wondering every time we submit article to one particular journal with IF of 2 to 3, the editor always asked us cite his article . initially we over looked it and though it is just it might be due lack of adequate references in literate. Today after confirming from many author across world, they were of same opinion regarding editors choice regarding his reference. Further, we found more than 200 authors have cited him in own journal from past one year .
does this comes under research misconduct ?
When I think back, I can easily recall such cases. For example, ours last week... Researchers, especially early career ones without background, are in a vulnerable position if they want their manuscript be published.
Anyone can suggest article (either reviewer or the editor). However, justification to be made why the authors have to cite it. Suppose, he was the original discoverer of an item or a phenomena, and if the authors fail to recognize it or forgot to mention, then it is a possibility. In such case, the request has to be fulfilled. Otherwise, they don't have to cite it and explanation can be given during revision why they have included. If the paper was rejected, then this has to be initially discussed with the editor first and then other course of action need to be taken. The authors inadvertently miss out an important or an original citation. So, this need to be encouraged. However, if they overboard, it will be definitely visible to the authors.
I guess this is quite common practice. Ask any early career researcher. On the other hand, there are journals where chances of acceptance increase if you have cited papers from that journal. And hence researchers include citations from that journal before submitting the manuscript.
Faced it but not sure about the misconduct. It cannot be labelled so till the reference is relevant in the text.
Dear Sheikh Shoib ,
The way you put it sounds like scientific misconduct. However, when your paper deals with let say COVID (…) and the journal and editor wrote a decent paper about this it is not that strange to cite such a paper.
A good editor takes some pride in his/her own journal (and his/her contribution) and therefor might think that such contributions ‘deserves’ a place in the reference list.
I agree that several hundreds of citations, sounds excessive. Too high number of self-citations and other citation anomalies can be a reason to discontinue a title by Clarivate so if this is a common practice and happens all the time with this particular journal then this behaviour will be ‘punished’.
Best regards.
It appears to be scientific misconduct. However, if you left out any significant work and thst work has been done by editor; i think that is not a scientific misconduct but a healthy practice.
https://publicationethics.org/case/editor-and-reviewers-requiring-authors-cite-their-own-work
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