Author Self-citation Research Articles

Examining Rate and Pattern of Author Self-Citation in Nepalese Journals

This bibliometric study has explored the frequency of the author self-citation, investigated the structure of author self-citation, and explored the association in terms of the number of authors, number of references, and author self-citation in the article from 18 journals published by different departments/campuses of eight faculties/institutes of Tribhuvan University. All the selected journals are indexed in the Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) database, the only indexing of Nepal. The study incorporated the most recent five journal issues, proportionally selected based on the representation of disciplines indexed in the database, from three faculties and five institutes of Tribhuvan University. The Faculty of Law was excluded due to the unavailability of journals. However, The Forestry: Journal of the Institute of Forestry, Nepal, was included despite having only four issues, to ensure representation of the discipline rather than excluding it entirely. Through the process, the study included 1,115 articles from 18 journals for descriptive and inferential analyses. Necessary information was manually collected from the articles to analyze the interconnectivity among the number of author self-citations, author(s), and references in the references section. As a result, author self-citation in journals varies from 11% in engineering to 70% in science and technology. The overall author self-citation rate is 29.6% in these 1,115 articles. Moreover, it is inferred that author self-citation is positively correlated with the number of authors per article and the number of references listed, and the self-citation behavior differs significantly across journals and faculties. In instances, where journals exhibit a high rate of author self-citation, it is recommended that editors and reviewers conduct a thorough review of the submitted manuscripts. Additionally, the study calls for a qualitative investigation to explore the underlying dynamics of the author self-citation. This investigation should determine whether the observed self-citations are an inherent aspect of scholarly practice or if they are strategically inserted for citation purposes in specific contexts.

The menace of self citation: An audit of two years from journals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

To assess the author and journal self-citation amongst journals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This is a cross-sectional study conducted from January 2021 to July 2021. In total, manuscript published in 10 journals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, either recognized by the Higher Education Commission or Pakistan Medical Commission, in the years 2018 and 2019 were included in the present research. All types of manuscripts were analyzed using a pre-designed data extraction table. Results were extracted, analyzed and appropriate statistics were applied. About 1235 manuscripts published in 68 issues over a period of two years' time were analyzed. The majority of manuscripts were 1039 (84.1%) original articles followed by case reports 90 (7.3%). Author self-citation came out to be 11.26% and journal self-citation was 6.5%. The same institute's author affiliation came out to be 40.6%. The trend of author self-citation was found to be high while that of journal self-citation was low when compared with already prevalent literature.

Author self-citations in the urology literature

ABSTRACT Objective We aimed to determine the diachronous self-citation rate and the various article characteristics which can influence the rate and percentage of diachronous author self-citations using papers published in high-rank urology journals. Methods We included all papers (N = 327 articles) published between January 2015 to April 2015 in the European Urology, The Journal of Urology and the BJU International. We determined author self-citations using the Scopus database and used negative binomial regression to determine which article characteristics affect self-citations. Results 262 articles (80.2%) contained at least one self-citation.The mean number and percentage of author self-citations were 6.5 and 14.2 respectively. Adjusted analysis showed that the experimental/animal study design and the number of authors were significantly associated with both the number (IRR = 2.12, P = 0.011; IRR = 1.03, P = 0.002) and percentage of author self-citations (IRR = 2.95, P = 0.003; IRR = 1.03, P = 0.012). The number of citations in the Scopus and publication in European Urology were significantly associated with only the number of author self-citations. Conclusion Diachronous author self-citation rate in urology is higher compared to general medical literature but similar to other surgical subspecialties. It may depend on the study design and the number of authors in the paper. For a more comprehensive evaluation, future studies should look at the context in which self-citations were made.

Author and journal self-citation in Emergency Medicine original research articles.

To determine author and journal self-citation rates in a sample of original emergency medicine (EM) research articles. We undertook a retrospective observational study of original research articles published in 2019 in the top six English language general EM journals. Data comprised the total numbers of articles, citations, authors and self-citations for each author (author self-citations) as well as the number of articles in the reference list that had been previously published in the same journal (journal self-citations). 3213 individual authors and 581 articles were examined. Most authors did not self-cite at all although 62 self-cited five or more times in a single article. The mean (SD) and median (IQR) numbers of individual author self-citations/article/year were 0.6 (1.3) and 0 (0-1), respectively. Overall, author self-citations accounted for 2.4% of all cited articles. There was a weak positive but significant correlation between the number of individual author self-citations/article/year and the number of articles published by the author (r=0.38, p<0.001). There was no correlation between the journal impact factor (IF) and the author self-citation rate (r=0.14, p=0.79). The journals differed significantly in their author self-citation rates (p<0.001). Annals of Emergency Medicine had the highest journal self-citation rate at 8.1% (95%CI 7.0%-9.2%) self-citations/100 citations/year, almost twice that of some other journals. There was a large but non-significant positive correlation between the journal IF and journal self-citation rates (r=0.78, p=0.07). Both author and journal self-citation rates in the articles examined are relatively low compared to other medical and scientific disciplines.

Author Self-Citation in the Turkish Otorhinolaryngology Literature.

Objective:To evaluate the prevalence and other characteristics of author self-citations in six Turkey-originated general otorhinolaryngology (ORL) journals of Turkish ORL literature.Methods:A total of 970 articles published in six Turkey-originated general ORL journals (ENT Updates, Journal of Ear Nose Throat and Head Neck Surgery, KBB-Forum, Praxis of Otorhinolaryngology, The Turkish Journal of Ear Nose and Throat, and Turkish Archives of Otorhinolaryngology) in 2016-2020 were analyzed for author self-citations. The association between author self-citations and journal types, study types, study topics, country of origin, and compatibility with the topic were also evaluated.Results:There were 265 author self-citations (0.273 per article) which corresponded to 1.36% of all citations. There was no significant difference between the journal types, study topics, and origin of the studies in terms of mean self-citation values per study, whereas case reports had significantly lower self-citations than review and original investigations. There were three citations (1.1%) that were irrelevant to the study topic.Conclusion:To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that investigated the practice of author self-citation in Turkish ORL literature. Author self-citation rate in the Turkish-originated general ORL journals was found remarkably lower than the medical literature, whereas the self-citations were found compatible with the study topic to a very large extent. Members of the scientific community including authors, readers, and journal editors should be cautious regarding the unethical practices of self-citations.

Relationship Between the Journal Self-Citation and Author Self-Citation and the Impact Factor in Iranian, American, and European Institute for Scientific Information Indexed Medical Journals in 2014-2021

Background: Author and journal self-citation contributes to the overall citation count of an article and the impact factor (IF) of the journal in which it appears. However, little is known about the extent of self-citation in the general clinical medicine literature. This study aimed to determine the effect of self-citation (journal and author) on the IF of Iranian, American, and European English medical journals. Materials and Methods: IF, IF without self-citations (corrected IF), journal self-citation rate, and author self-citation rate for medical journals were investigated from 2014–2021 by reviewing the Journal Citation Report (JCR). Twenty Iranian medical journals (published in English) in the web of science indexed were selected and compared with 20 American and 20 European medical journals. The correlation between the journal self-citation and author self-citation with IF was obtained. We used Spearman’s correlation coefficient for the correlation of self-citation and IF. Results: The overall journal citations were higher in the American and European journals compared to the Iranian ones between 2014 and 2021. There was a significant relationship between journal self-citation rates and IF (P&lt;0.001). The findings demonstrated that the rate of author self-citation was higher in the European and American journals compared to the Iranian ones. Findings also showed a significant difference between the author's self-citation and IF in Iranian, American, and European medical journals that published in English (P&lt;0.001). Conclusions: The self-citation rate positively affects the IF in medical journals. A high concentration of self-citation of some journals could distort the ranking among medical surgery journals in general.&#x0D; [GMJ.2021;10:e2156]

Relationship Between the Journal Self-Citation and Author Self-Citation and the Impact Factor in Iranian, American, and European Institute for Scientific Information Indexed Medical Journals in 2014-2021

Background: Author and journal self-citation contributes to the overall citation count of an article and the impact factor (IF) of the journal in which it appears. However, little is known about the extent of self-citation in the general clinical medicine literature. This study aimed to determine the effect of self-citation (journal and author) on the IF of Iranian, American, and European English medical journals. Materials and Methods: IF, IF without self-citations (corrected IF), journal self-citation rate, and author self-citation rate for medical journals were investigated from 2014–2021 by reviewing the Journal Citation Report (JCR). Twenty Iranian medical journals (published in English) in the web of science indexed were selected and compared with 20 American and 20 European medical journals. The correlation between the journal self-citation and author self-citation with IF was obtained. We used Spearman’s correlation coefficient for the correlation of self-citation and IF. Results: The overall journal citations were higher in the American and European journals compared to the Iranian ones between 2014 and 2021. There was a significant relationship between journal self-citation rates and IF (P&lt;0.001). The findings demonstrated that the rate of author self-citation was higher in the European and American journals compared to the Iranian ones. Findings also showed a significant difference between the author's self-citation and IF in Iranian, American, and European medical journals that published in English (P&lt;0.001). Conclusions: The self-citation rate positively affects the IF in medical journals. A high concentration of self-citation of some journals could distort the ranking among medical surgery journals in general.&#x0D; [GMJ.2021;10:e2156]

Author self-citation policies, the influence on journals’ impact factors, and self-citation rate in general surgery

Author self-citation policies, the influence on journals’ impact factors, and self-citation rate in general surgery

Applying text similarity algorithm to analyze the triangular citation behavior of scientists

Triangular citation is a particular citation structure with research value and application significance, and the fundamental mechanism of its formation lies in the indirect citation between Literature A and Literature C. It is necessary to dig deeply into the citation context and citation motivation of indirect citation behavior to understand the internal mechanism of triangular citation. In this paper, the text-similarity algorithm was used to calculate the similarity of citation contents between B→A and C→A in 22,536 triangular citation data, and the followers C with high citation similarity were identified. Secondly, from the perspectives of language, literature type, interdisciplinary citation, and author self-citation, combined literature characteristics and followers’ identification results, the context and motivation of indirect citation behaviors imposed by the followers C were analyzed. The results show that followers C appear more frequently in triangular citations. At the same time, due to the influence of language differences, literature types, discipline differences or author self-citation, follower C will have lazy citation motivation when citing Literature A, partially or out-and-out requote Literature A from the citation content of Literature B, resulting in a high similarity between the citation content of C→A and B→A.

Author self-citation in orthodontics is associated with author origin and gender

BackgroundThe aims of this bibliometric study were to determine author self-citation trends in high-impact orthodontic literature and to investigate possible association between self-citation and publication characteristics.MethodsSix orthodontic journals with the highest impact factor as ranked by 2017 Journal Citation Reports were screened for a full publication year (2018) for original research articles, reviews, and case reports. Eligible articles were scrutinized for article and author characteristics and citation metrics. Univariable and multivariable negative binomial regression was used to examine associations between self-citation incidence and publication characteristics.ResultsMedians for author self-citation rate of the most self-citing authors and self-citations were 3.03% (range 0–50) and 1 (range 0–19), respectively. In the univariable analysis, there was no association between self-citation counts and study type (P = 0.41), article topic (P = 0.61), number of authors (P = 0.62), and rank of authors (P = 0.56). Author origin (P = 0.001), gender (P = 0.001) and journal (P = 0.05) were associated with self-citation counts and in the multivariable analysis only origin and gender remained strong self-citation predictors. Asian authors and females self-cited significantly less often than all other regions and male authors.ConclusionsAuthors in orthodontics do not self-cite at a frequency that suggests potential citation manipulation. Author origin and gender were the only variables associated with citations counts. More bibliometric research is necessary to draw solid conclusions about author self-citation trends in orthodontic literature.

Effect of Common Extraneous Citation Optimizing Factors on Journal Impact Indicators

Influence of a research journal is usually assessed in contemporary academia by Journal Impact Factor (JIF) given by Journal Citation Reports (JCR) published annually by Clarivate Analytics. JCR also provides Journal Immediacy Index (JII), an additional citation parameter which indicates current impact of journals. These citation based measures are simple arithmetic mean of raw citation counts to source publications. It is opined and empirically tested that three major extraneous citation optimizing factors i.e., Author self-citation (ASC), Journal self-citation (JSC) and Recitation (RC) can inflate these popular citation based metrics. This study examines nineteen Scopus index Library and Information Science (LIS) journals to understand individual as well as unified effects of these three optimizing factors on three popular impact indicators i.e., 2-year JIF, 3-year JIF and JII. It is found that ASC and JSC have noticeable effects on these impact indicators. Further, it is observed that these impact indicators exhibit very poor correlation among them when their values are deduced from raw citation counts, though all of them express simple arithmetic mean values. However, modified impact indicators calculated after excluding citations due to these optimizing factors, exhibit moderate to strong correlation among them. It is therefore concluded that more refined method that can automatically exclude the effect of these optimizing factors in their derivation may be needed for fair assessment of a journal’s relative impact in scholarly communication.

Self-citations in musculoskeletal radiology: frequency and pattern analysis.

Background Author self-citation can affect quantitative aspects of scientific research. However, little is known about its prevalence in radiology literature. Purpose The aim of this study was to determine the frequency and factors associated with author self-citation in musculoskeletal radiology. Material and Methods Retrospective review of bibliographic data in musculoskeletal radiology articles of two separate journals over a 23-month period (January 2015 to November 2016) was performed to determine frequency of author self-citations. Other data included article type, topic, title length, author order, affiliation, and geographic location. Results One-third of all included articles had author self-citations with a mean and median of 2.8 and 2 citations per article. Case reports contained up to 52.4% self-citations (mean = 11.2%, 95% CI = 5.9–16.5). Larger frequencies of self-citations were found among first and second authors and university-affiliated authors. The United States was the most frequent country to produce publications but did not have the highest percentage of self-citations. Conclusion Self-citations in musculoskeletal radiology is no different than other medical fields. It does not currently seem to pose a threat on the integrity of scientific research and is usually needed to expand on previous knowledge. Nevertheless, authors and journals should be aware of implications of abusing such practice on future medical research.

Influence of selected factors in journals’ citations

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of selected factors in journal citations. Various factors can affect citations distribution of journals. Among them, skewness of citations distribution, author self-citation, journal self-citation and recitations (RCs) have been studied.Design/methodology/approachThe present study based on 16 systematically selected journals indexed in Scopus under the subject category “Library and Information Science.” The study was confined to original research and review articles that were published in the selected journals in the year 2011. The temporal citation window from 2011 to 2014 was taken for analysis. Tools like, Scopus author ID, ORCID and author profiles from Google Scholar were used to minimize the error due to homonyms, spelling variances and misspelling in authors’ names.FindingsIt is found that citations distribution in majority of the journals under the study is highly skewed and more likely to follow log-normal distribution. The nature of authorship in papers was found to have positive effect on citation counts. Self-citing data show that higher ranked journals have rather less direct impact on total citation counts than their lower counterpart. RCs are also found to be more in top-tier journals. Though the influence of self-citations and RCs were relatively less at individual level on total citations of journals but combined, they can play a dominant role and can affect total citation counts of journals at significant level.Research limitations/implicationsThe present study is based on Scopus database only. Therefore, citation data can be affected by the inherent limitation of Scopus. Readers are encouraged to further the study by taking into account large sample and tracing citations from an array of citation indexes, such as Web of Science, Google citations, Indian Citation Index, etc.Originality/valueThis paper reinforces that the citations received by journals can be affected by the factors selected in this study. Therefore, the study provides better understanding of the role of these selected factors in journal citations.

Assessing author self-citation as a mechanism of relevant knowledge diffusion

Author self-citation is a practice that has been historically surrounded by controversy. Although the prevalence of self-citations in different scientific fields has been thoroughly analysed, there is a lack of large scale quantitative research focusing on its usefulness at guiding readers in finding new relevant scientific knowledge. In this work we empirically address this issue. Using as our main corpus the entire set of PLOS journals research articles, we train a topic discovery model able to capture semantic dissimilarity between pairs of articles. By dividing pairs of articles involved in intra-PLOS citations into self-citations (articles linked by a cite which share at least one author) and non-self-citations (articles linked by a cite which share no author), we observe the distribution of semantic dissimilarity between citing and cited papers in both groups. We find that the typical semantic distance between articles involved in self-citations is significantly smaller than the observed one for articles involved in non-self-citations. Additionally, we find that our results are not driven by the fact that authors tend to specialize in particular areas of research, make use of specific research methodologies or simply have particular styles of writing. Overall, assuming shared content as an indicator of relevance and pertinence of citations, our results indicate that self-citations are, in general, useful as a mechanism of knowledge diffusion.

A comparative bibliometric analysis of finance papers published in high impact journals and developing country-addressed journals: the case of Turkish journals

The aim of this study is to compare finance articles published in highest-impact journals and developing country–addressed journals from a bibliometric perspective. For this purpose, it compares finance papers published in the Turkish-originated journals Journal of Economics, Business and Finance (IIF) and Journal of Accounting and Finance (known as Mufad) with those published in the world’s most influential journals, Journal of Finance (JOF) and the Review of Financial Studies (RFS), in terms of research collaboration, author self-citation, average length, average age of reference, and JEL category, for the period covering 2010–2014. Our results show that Turkey-addressed journals have a smaller average number of authors, number of references, and author self-citation compared with high-impact journals. However, we also observe in comparison that Turkish female academicians have made more contributions to the finance literature, and the average article length (in page numbers) is increasing in Turkish journals. Finally, Turkish academicians are more likely to be generalists, compared with Western Academicians, who tend to concentrate in narrower research fields. Keywords: Finance studies, bibliometric analysis, comparative analysis, journal rankings, finance journals. JEL Classification: G00, M20

Author Self-Citation in the Otolaryngology Literature: A Pilot Study.

To determine the prevalence of author self-citation in the field of otolaryngology. A retrospective review of bibliographic references in 5 otolaryngology journals. Five high-impact otolaryngology journals were reviewed over a 3-month period between January and March 2014 to identify the pattern of author self-citations. Data included study type, otolaryngology topic, authorship, total citations, author self-citations, and country of origin. Nearly two-thirds of articles contained at least 1 self-citation, with an average of 2.6 self-citations per article. Self-citations represented nearly 10% of total citations. Articles with at least 1 self-citation had more authors (5.8 vs 4.9, P < .01) and more citations (30.4 vs 22.2, P < .01) per article than did those without self-citations. There was no difference in self-citation practices between articles originating within the United States and abroad (P = .65). Last authors were the most frequent self-citers and were more likely than lead authors to cite themselves (P < .01). Original reports contained the highest percentage of self-citations per article as compared with reviews and case reports (P < .01). Author self-citation in the otolaryngology literature is common and compares similarly to other medical specialties previously studied. Self-citation should not be considered inappropriate, as it is often done to expand on earlier research. Nevertheless, editors, researchers, and readers should be aware of this increasingly recognized phenomenon and its associated potential implications to the process of scientific inquiry.

Authors self-citation behaviour in the field of Library and Information Science

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the author self-citation behavior in the field of Library and Information Science. Various factors governing the author self-citation behavior have also been studied. Design/methodology/approach – The 2012 edition of Social Science Citation Index was consulted for the selection of LIS journals. Under the subject heading “Information Science and Library Science” there were 84 journals and out of these 12 journals were selected for the study based on systematic sampling. The study was confined to original research and review articles that were published in select journals in the year 2009. The main reason to choose 2009 was to get at least five years (2009-2013) citation data from Web of Science Core Collection (excluding Book Citation Index) and SciELO Citation Index. A citation was treated as self-citation whenever one of the authors of citing and cited paper was common, i.e., the set of co-authors of the citing paper and that of the cited one are not disjoint. To minimize the risk of homonyms, spelling variances and misspelling in authors’ names, the authors compared full author names in citing and cited articles. Findings – A positive correlation between number of authors and total number of citations exists with no correlation between number of authors and number/share of self-citations, i.e., self-citations are not affected by the number of co-authors in a paper. Articles which are produced in collaboration attract more self-citations than articles produced by only one author. There is no statistically significant variation in citations counts (total and self-citations) in works that are result of different types of collaboration. A strong and statistically significant positive correlation exists between total citation count and frequency of self-citations. No relation could be ascertained between total citation count and proportion of self-citations. Authors tend to cite more of their recent works than the work of other authors. Total citation count and number of self-citations are positively correlated with the impact factor of source publication and correlation coefficient for total citations is much higher than that for self-citations. A negative correlation exhibits between impact factor and the share of self-citations. Of particular note is that the correlation in all the cases is of weak nature. Research limitations/implications – The research provides an understanding of the author self-citations in the field of LIS. readers are encouraged to further the study by taking into account large sample, tracing citations also from Book Citation Index (WoS) and comparing results with other allied subjects so as to validate the robustness of the findings of this study. Originality/value – Readers are encouraged to further the study by taking into account large sample, tracing citations also from Book Citation Index (WoS) and comparing results with other allied subjects so as to validate the robustness of the findings of this study.

Hepatitis B: global scientific development from a critical point of view

Hepatitis B is the tenth leading cause of death worldwide. Countries with high endemicity, such as China and Taiwan show high scientific productivity in this field and dominate the top ten list of the most productive authors worldwide, providing four of them. This is remarkable, as the USA and Europe usually maintain leading positions, not only regarding country-specific scientific productivity, but also top ten ranking of most productive and most cited authors in other important medical sectors. So far, a scientometric analysis of the topic 'hepatitis B' has not been generated despite an increased need for it in times of modified evaluation criteria for academic personnel and a subsequent tendency to co-authorship and author self-citation. In this study, scientometric methods and large-scale data analysis were used to evaluate quality and quantity of scientific research dealing with the topic 'hepatitis B' and to contribute to distinguish relevant research output. Data were gained from Pubmed and ISI-Web. In the time span of 1971-2011, 49166 items were published by 250 countries, of which the USA have been the most productive supplier with 28% of all publications, followed in considerable distance by Germany, China, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy and Taiwan, respectively. The USA have established their position as centre of international cooperation. Their cooperation with China proves to be the most productive one. The most prolific journals in the field of hepatitis b were 'Hepatology', the 'Journal of Hepatology' and the 'Journal of Medical Virology'. h-index, citation rate and impact factor, commonly used for assessment of scientific quality, were determined and discussed critically with regard to distortion by bias of self-citation and co-authorship.

Gout: a critical analysis of scientific development

In recent years, scientific efforts on the topic "gout" have focused on pathogenetic aspects. This has opened new strategies of anti-inflammatory therapy and has improved urate-lowering therapy. So far, a scientometric analysis of the topic "gout" has not been generated despite an increased need for it in times of modified evaluation criteria for academic personnel and a subsequent tendency to co-authorship and author self-citation. The study aims to evaluate quality and quantity of scientific research dealing with the topic "gout" and to contribute to distinguish relevant research output. The current study uses scientometric methods and large-scale data analysis to evaluate quality and quantity of scientific efforts in the field of "gout." Data were gained from PubMed and ISI-Web. In the last 22 years (1990–2012), 4,424 items were published by 71 countries, of which the USA have been the most productive supplier with 32 % of all publications, followed in considerable distance by the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain and Germany, respectively. The USA have established their position as center of international cooperation. The most prolific journals in the field of gout were "Arthritis and Rheumatism," "Annals of the Rheumatic diseases" and the "Journal of Rheumatology." Our analysis specifies the most productive authors and institutions engaged with the topic, the most successful international and national cooperation and the most prolific journals and subject areas. Nevertheless, scientometric indicators, such as h-index, citation rate and impact factor, commonly used for assessment of scientific quality, should be seen critically due to distortion by bias of self-citation and co-authorship.

Inflation of impact factors by journal self-citation in cardiovascular science

Recently, several major cases of fraud in science were exposed in the Netherlands [1–3]. Unfortunately, the case of Don Poldermans from Erasmus University outlined that this scientific misbehaviour has also affected cardiovascular science, [3] after previous shocking cases in medicine, [4] including the Woo-Suk Hwang debacle on cell stem technology published by Science [5] (see ref. [6] for an extensive analysis of the case). During the editorship of Michiel J. Janse (and my associate editorship) of Cardiovascular Research (1995–2002), there were no retractions, although some investigations were initiated. However, there were five retractions over the subsequent 10 years under the co-editorship of Michael H. Piper and David Garcia-Dorado [7]. An increase in retractions suggests that fraud in science is a problem of increasing importance. Of course, editors and reviewers alike have neither been educated to act as data police officers, nor is it their primary goal to search for fraud [6]. Still, they are the only gatekeepers we have for maintaining moral and ethical standards in science when authors fail in this respect. For this reason it is important that editors act responsibly. During the last years several journals were banned from the Journal Citation Reports, a product of Thomson Reuters, which implies that a journal is not assigned an impact factor for several years. The main reason for this was excessive self-citation by journals, which ‘inflates’ the impact factor of a journal compared with its value were it solely based on citations obtained from other journals. The fact that papers in a certain journal are more often cited by that same journal than would be expected from citation by other journals is not a new observation. It has been demonstrated and analysed previously [8, 9]. Of course, both author self-citation and journal self-citations are in themselves useful, relevant and functional when it comes to transfer of knowledge. It becomes a problem when journal self-citation serves a merchandising rather than a scientific goal, i.e. when authors are pushed to include citations with the primary goal of increasing the impact factor of the journal that is going to publish their paper. This could be labelled as ‘coercing citation’.