Citation cartels formed by journals are a well-known thread to scientific publishing. But this text is not about journals pushing authors to cite certain other journals to hack the journal impact factor (see Smith, 2006; for a comment on the journal impact factor). Here, I discuss my opinion about a strategic possibility for researchers to polish their own citation score. The citation score is the number of total citations accumulated by the publications of one researcher. It is calculated daily and is one of the most available measures of personal impact for researchers. When evaluating a young researcher’s worth for grants and academic positions, the feedback includes remarks about how much the personal citation score grew (or not) during some career interval. It affects personal life, as things like immigration procedures sometimes evaluate the same metric. For a career in science, it is almost indispensable to have a rapidly increasing personal citation score in the first years of an academic career.
So why not hack the system a bit? Two ways are possible, accepted, and practiced throughout the community. First, excessive self-citation. It is easy to slip in the occasional self-reference. Many times, this can be warranted to avoid repetitions. Sometimes though, a self-citation points to a paper that merely describes common knowledge or does not add knowledge to the previous literature. This practice boosts both the personal citation score and the journal impact factors. Such citations are worthless to the reader. They are ‘billboard’ references that mirror the author’s agenda, rather than giving a fair representation of the development of scientific ideas.
Second, the selective referencing of the author’s close colleagues and collaborators, while omitting contributions by competing researchers to the same topic. This practice boosts citations accumulated by peer-citation-cartels of researchers who are tied as advisors, students, postdocs, colleagues, and personal friends. While it may give a correct account of a subset of knowledge, it is still highly selective due to the competitor bias of the peer-citation-cartel.
There is more. Self-citations are unfortunate but have no immediate effect on other researchers. However, peer-citation-cartels divide the community by institutional networks of the authors, and therefore likely by privilege, gender, nationality, geography, and race (see Li et al., 2022; on network effects of productivity and prominence in science). Selective citing can ignite sentiments among researchers that live for generations of students. Peer-citation-cartels come at a cost to a community and its climate.
The platform Retraction Watch labels authors following such practices as career-strategic scholars, opposing sincere scholars:
‘Career-strategic scholars do not cite the work of those outside their group, unless they must because that other work is so well known their slight would be widely noticed.’
In a simple thought experiment, Phelbs (2022) shows that the strategic scholar accumulates around three times as many citations as the sincere scholar. Yet, they hint at the danger of such career-strategic scholars who, when asked for advice by policymakers and journalists, are prone to follow similar tendencies. Bolstered by artificially re-shaped authorship networks, they may repeat skewed, self-serving accounts of the current knowledge production and its future perspectives.
Authors are free to choose who and how they cite. Before publication, journal editors and reviewers share the responsibility to identify excessive self-citations or active peer-citation-cartels. This is not an easy task, as it requires a grasp of the existing literature and the dynamics of competing research groups. Fister, and Perc (2016) give a detailed introduction to the issue of citation cartels and suggest highlighting them by multi-leveled graph networks. Citation cartels form specific patterns in the networks of all citations of an author, and the subset of all the references in a particular paper. Accusing authors of systematic malpractice for self-serving citations is close to impossible; ignorance is bliss. Yet, the community has a chance to correct authors for their ‘mistakes’. Scrutinize when self-citation becomes excessive, or citation stacking becomes visible to the eye. Follow up on the self-cited references and evaluate the material in the context of common knowledge. Bold (but not really) suggestion: Do an online search of the statement in question – if you have a better grasp of the knowledge evolution from the first ten results of your search engine than from the citation, then check for flaws. Point it out, ask authors to be precise, and make authors accountable. Use their own excuse, the most direct pursuit of knowledge, if necessary.
What can the conclusion be, and the answer to the question heading this article? In a realm without rules, little management, and limited accountability, young researchers can only be guided by what they believe. Do we believe in the almighty power of the citation index and that it is our person as a brand that is advertised in each citation we spell out? If so, then yes, junior scientists should trade as many mentions as they can with their peers (and themselves). For advanced-level self-promotion, it is handy to discredit competitors whenever possible – conveniently staged as collateral damage during the noble pursuit of knowledge. Or do we believe that solving a problem is the priority and that the name we attach to its outcome is secondary? In this case, there are no limitations on whom we cite or consult – if it actually advances the science we study. Credit can be given where it is due; there is no need to squeeze out one more self-citation or single-author mention. When asking ourselves which way we believe in, it may be good to remember some advice from literature about doctors entering a self-serving pact: What dazzles, for the moment spends its spirit (Goethe, Faust).
Original blog post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-junior-scientists-fall-peer-citation-cartels-jens-mahlmann
Jens Mahlmann 