It is perfectly fine (and in fact helpful) to suggest papers that have a good fit. It is even not "unethical" to suggest your own papers, as long as you are not overdoing it. However, much too often it is the case that reviewers suggest their own papers which have a poor fit and you (as the author) have a hard time integrating them into your paper. This is a nuisance and should be stopped by the editor. Of course, this is unlikely to happen since editors are happy if they find reviewers in the first place.

Good response from Horst. Jaroslaw - you seem to suggest that any reference to a reviewers own work or their colleagues is unethical - but that is only the case if it appears for personal gain if you ask me. What if I am a reviewer that has an international reputation in my field yet the author has not acknowledged that work? If they have suggested that they have conducted an extensive literature review - then they would have found that work. However, and this is a case in point, if you are only citing 'national' i.e. US literature - then the authors have not conducted a full review and should be alerted to the wider international literature.

Jaroslaw - I think, it is unfair to recommend any references while reviewing a journal paper specifically recommending reviewer friends' papers or on's own papers unless there is dearth of literature or the papers are the most reputed ones. It is also totally unethical to refer a paper that if it is of low standard, as that is how errors and misunderstandings are perpetuated and research standard falls down. Dean Whitehead is right in saying that suggesting references should not be for personal gain but the underlying assumption is that when reviewers suggest their own or friends or colleagues articles, it does help them directly or indirectly.

From my view point, if any paper may related to the paper the recommendation of such paper no matter reviewer or any body may give strength to the current paper.

Dear All

Thank you very much for your comments.

I can see that, like in all the discussions, the opinion depends on the position. For Horst Treiblmaier and Dean Whitehead a single citation is not a personal gain indeed - less then 0,003% of the actual citation count :-) So suggesting "fundamental works" does not seem unethical. But my concerns are based on the fact, that "most cited" works does not have to be the most relevant in every single case (see Witold Bogusz comment) and we put it on the reference list just to "inherit" some of their prestige or prove that we learnt the lessons.

Jaroslaw Rybak You are right as far as the selection of citations is concerned. There is an unspoken rule that the sources you cite should come from prestigious journals. In other words, if you have a paper with a good fit from a poorly ranked journal and a paper with a poorer fit from a top journal, you will opt for the second version. Unfortunately, this situation is fostered by many reviewers. For example, several times I got the feedback that it is not allowed to include journals for practitioners in a so-called structured literature review. Those are academia's self-imposed rules.

I think that there is nothing unethical as long as the suggested reference is related and can improve the article under review.

Personally, when I consider useful to suggest enriching the reference list for the update or to corroborate some analyzes, I propose to the authors a short list of articles. If there are also my articles in this list, I declare a possible conflict of interest, because I am the author of one or some articles in the suggested list. The Peer review remains anonymous

From many of the comments it seems to be that the reason for suggesting a reference matters. I have spent many years working with students so when I review a journal article I tend to comment as an educator. For example, "you may want to comment in your discussion on how your findings differ from X" or "your literature appears to include only articles from your own country - are you aware of X and Y?"

I hadn't occurred to me to use my role as a journal reviewer to highlight my own work - though generally the article I am reviewing does cite my work as it is a fairly small field. Maybe next review I will try to find a way to suggest my own work be included!

Dear Genevieve Ellen Becker

Yes , it is the intention that matters. But even the best intentions may be misunderstood. So I hope that the last sentence of your comment is ironic.

Otherwise I'd have to feel guilty to drag you to the dark side :-)

Best regards

following