Citation Manipulation
Most metrics of scholarly performance, including the Journal Impact Factor, are based on citations to published articles. This may generate strong temptation to inappropriately increase citations, something that is referred to as citation manipulation or citation gaming.
Citation manipulation refers to any systematic practice that inappropriately pressures authors to cite material with the primary goal of boosting citation rates. The CSE considers all such practices unacceptable.
The following forms of citation manipulation (for the purpose of increasing citation rates) have been reported:
- Coercion. At some point during the peer-review process, editors (or anyone else involved in the process) request that authors add citations from their own journal (or a journal from the same publisher).
- Editorials. Editors write editorials in which a disproportionate number of articles from their own journal are cited.
- Reviewers suggesting citations of their own work. Reviewers may suggest that authors cite their articles.
- Self-citation. Authors cite disproportionately large numbers of their own articles in all or most of their publications.
- Citation swapping. A group of colleagues (perhaps students or research associates of a particular researcher) agrees to preferentially and regularly cite each other’s articles in all or most of their publications.
Anybody involved in the peer-review process can become a party to citation manipulation. Therefore, it is every participant’s responsibility to judge how reasonable such requests are. Stakeholders in the peer-review and editorial process should be alerted to citation manipulation and bring concerns to the attention of the editor, publisher, or other accountable party. Journals may also decide to publish a policy statement condemning citation manipulation practices. It should be noted that most impact factor formulas monitor when self-citation by a journal reaches an unacceptable level. Although such behavior may result in a short-term gain, the strategy may not work in the long-term.
Available from www.councilscienceeditors.org
CIting a paper never means that the author has read the whole paper! All it says is that the paraphrase or quotation comes from the paper. With today's full-text tools, a researcher does not have to read every word in every paper.
In terms of ease and frequency of abuse:
*Bear in mind that the citing of one's colleagues and particular journals is a function of how parochial the research has been. Although it does bias the paper, in practice it is not usually a sign of malfeasance.
Research journal editorials by the Editor(s) are expected to be mainly or only about the current journal.
Sometimes authors also include too many citations per statement to dissuade reviewers from checking the relevance of each citation. Some authors alsouse this tactic to intimidate the reviewer into thinking that the author did a thorough job in his or her writing of the manuscript
CIting a paper never means that the author has read the whole paper! All it says is that the paraphrase or quotation comes from the paper. With today's full-text tools, a researcher does not have to read every word in every paper.
I perfectly agree with your observations. Citation of articles must be genuine. Authors must sincerely ask themselves this question before citing their works or those of others: Is it worth citing the work in the research paper write up? What is the purpose of the citation? Is it to corroborate, refute or extend a proposition made? There must be scholarliness in our citation of papers as scholars. Kudos to the CSE for such a wonderful sensitization and education!
I have also been requested to delete citations from competing journals, even though the citations were valid.
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