Journal Self-citation Research Articles

Comparison of journal and top publisher self-citation rates in COVID-19 research.

Journal self-citation contributes to the overall citation count of a journal and to some metrics like the impact factor. However, little is known about the extent of journal self-citations in COVID-19 research. This study aimed to determine the journal self-citations in COVID-19 research and to compare them according to the type of publication and publisher. Data in COVID-19 research extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection 2020-2023 was collected and further analyzed with InCites. The journals with the highest self-citation rates and self-citation per publication were identified. Statistical comparisons were made according to the type of publication and publishers, as well as with other major infectious diseases. The median self-citation rate was 4.0% (IQR 0-11.7%), and the median journal self-citation rate was 5.9% (IQR 0-12.5%). 1,859 journals (13% of total coverage) had self-citation rates at or above 20%, meaning that more than one in five references are journal self-citations. There was a positive and statistically significant correlation of self-citations with the other indicators, including number of publications, citations, and self-citations per publication (p<0.001). Editorial materials contributed more to journal SC with a median self-citation rate of 5%, which was statistically higher than other documents such as articles, letters or reviews (p<0.001). Among the top twelve publishers, the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute had a median self-citation rate of 8.33% and was statistically higher than the rest (p<0.001). Self-citation rates for COVID-19 were lower than tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, but self-citations per publication of these diseases were statistically lower than those for COVID-19 (p<0.001). Some journals from the Web of Science Core Collection displayed exorbitant journal self-citation patterns during the period 2020-2023. Approximately, one in every five paper references in COVID-19 is a journal self-citation. Types of publication such as editorials engage in this practice more frequently than others, suggesting that in COVID-19 research, self-citing non-citable items could potentially contribute to inflate journal impact factors during the pandemic.

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.

Journal self-citations trends in sport sciences: an analysis of disciplinary journals from 2013 to 2022

This study reports on the yearly rate of journal self-citation (JSC) in sport sciences, how it changes over time, and its association with journal impact factor (JIF). Citations made by all 87 journals in “sport sciences” from 2013 to 2022 were extracted, as was their 2022 JIF. JSC rates were calculated using a Poisson distribution method. A mixed-effects negative binomial regression examined changes in yearly JSC rates over time. The association between average JSC rates and JIF were compared using a negative binomial regression. The median JSC rate was 6.3 self-citations per 100 citations. JSC rates are increasing in sport sciences by ~ 10% per year (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 1.1, 95% CI 1.1–1.2; trivial effect). There was a significant negative association between JSC rate and JIF (IRR = 0.9, 95% CI 0.9, 1.0; trivial effect). Contrary to observations made in prior literature examining broader disciplines, the increasing JSC rate in sport sciences may be attributed to the growing maturity of this novel discipline. As sport-science topic areas become more established and appear in discipline specific journals, more JSCs may occur due to an increasing body of literature in these journals. The negative association between JSC rate and JIF may be due to specialized and less visible journals having a naturally lower JIF, as their impact is confined to a narrower field.

A new Normalized Index for Ranking Papers in Systematic Literature Reviews

The number of journals, and consequently the number of papers, has grown significantly, which makes it necessary to use suitable tools in systematic literature reviews. Several methodologies have been proposed for this purpose, and one of these methods is the index calculation used to rank the papers in order of importance. This study proposes a new index called the Normalized Index for Ranking Papers to rank the papers in a systematic literature review, which is considered mainly indicators provided by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies journal indicators. For this index calculation, importance weights are assigned by the researchers, and the indicators used in the index are normalized. For ranking the final portfolio, the proposed method considers a weighted average of indicators (impact factors) in which the paper was published and a value that represents approximately the number of citations per year. The journal self-citation index benefits the journals with lower self-citation practices. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) was carried out to analyze the final portfolio’s results involving Multi-criteria Decision Analysis in airports. The indicators normalization enables the importance of each metric to be decided by the researcher according to the choice of the weights, not by the difference in the indicators’ magnitude. The importance of an article can be proved initially by the journal indicators in which the paper was published and by citations per year.

Academic Endogamy in Library and Information Science Journals

This study examines the editorial endogeny of Library and Information Science journals. The endogeny was determined by the analysis of (1) papers published by the journal’s editors, (2) papers published by the journal’s country of origin, and (3) journal self-citation. The study used five-year coverage based on journals listed in the Web of Science. Regarding the editorial endogeny, the cut-off line of 50% of publications was at 4.51%. However, some journals have concentrated this endogeny from 20% to 45%. The endogenous model developed with the three analyses generated a journal efficiency system that showed a moderate index by the quartile of the journals, with an average of four endogenous papers per journal. 50% of the publications obtained an average of 10.70% self-citations. But part of the 50% most endogenous journals obtained indices ranging from 11% to 75.99%, with ten journals over 30%. 50% of papers are from the journal’s country of origin. We conclude that the levels of endogeny were balanced on average, but some journals abused it to improve their ranking and impact.

Predicting substantive biomedical citations without full text

Insights from biomedical citation networks can be used to identify promising avenues for accelerating research and its downstream bench-to-bedside translation. Citation analysis generally assumes that each citation documents substantive knowledge transfer that informed the conception, design, or execution of the main experiments. Citations may exist for other reasons. In this paper, we take advantage of late-stage citations added during peer review because these are less likely to represent substantive knowledge flow. Using a large, comprehensive feature set of open access data, we train a predictive model to identify late-stage citations. The model relies only on the title, abstract, and citations to previous articles but not the full-text or future citations patterns, making it suitable for publications as soon as they are released, or those behind a paywall (the vast majority). We find that high prediction scores identify late-stage citations that were likely added during the peer review process as well as those more likely to be rhetorical, such as journal self-citations added during review. Our model conversely gives low prediction scores to early-stage citations and citation classes that are known to represent substantive knowledge transfer. Using this model, we find that US federally funded biomedical research publications represent 30% of the predicted early-stage (and more likely to be substantive) knowledge transfer from basic studies to clinical research, even though these comprise only 10% of the literature. This is a threefold overrepresentation in this important type of knowledge flow.

Determinants of impact factor and Eigenfactor score in otolaryngology journals.

This study aims to identify determinants of high impact, measured by Impact Factor (IF) and Eigenfactor score, among otolaryngology journals. Bibliometric data of "otorhinolaryngology" journals were collected from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database. For the years 2009-2020, we collected normalized Eigenfactor score, 5-year IF, immediacy index, fraction of IF from journal-self citation, proportion and magnitude of published citable articles, and total citation counts. High-IF and -Eigenfactor journals were considered those within the top-quartile of that metric each respective year. High-IF and -Eigenfactor otolaryngology journals displayed higher 5-year IFs, immediacy indexes, and IF without self-citation (p < .05 for all years) including total citations counts and citable articles when ranked by Eigenfactor (p < .05 for all years). Otolaryngology IF correlated with 5-year IF and immediacy index within the same year (p < .05 for all years) and from previous years (p < .05 for all years; p < .05 for2017-2018; p > .05 for2009-2016). Eigenfactor correlated with 5-year IF, total citation counts, and citable articles within the same year (p < .05 for all years) and previous years (p < .05 for2013-2018). Multilinear regression revealed that 5-year IF (p < .05 for2009-2018) and immediacy index from the prior 2 years (p < .05 for2017-2018; p > .05 for2009-2016) predicted 2019 IF. Similarly, 5-year IF, total citation counts, and citable articles (p < .05 for 2013-2018) predicted 2019 Eigenfactor score. Sustained publication of impactful articles is the dominant driver of high IF and Eigenfactor score. Eigenfactor score reflects a unique evaluation of otolaryngology journals; ranking otolaryngology journals by their Eigenfactor scores significantly alters journal ranking compared to ranking by IF. NA.

Autocitação de periódico no índice-h5 de periódicos Ibero-Americanos

Abstract: It aims to analyze journal self-citation in Ibero-American journals from the h5-index of the Google Scholar Metrics. The bibliometric tool Gsm_hdata was used to identify 4049 Ibero-American journals indexed simultaneously in Latindex and Google Scholar Metrics. Self-citations were identified, self-citation rates by country and research area were calculated, and the h5-index was recalculated without self-citations (hs5-index). No self-citations were identified in almost 40% of the journals, especially those with an h5-index lower than 5. The overall average self-citation rate was 3.6%. Among the 1859 most cited journals with at least one self-citation, the rate was 4.8%, lower than that of research based on the Impact Factor. Journals of Engineering, Exact and Natural Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences had the highest self-citation rates, while Social Sciences and Humanities journals presented the lowest. Journals with excessive rates (outliers) were identified in all areas. These results suggest that the prior exclusion of journal self-citations in the calculation of the h5-index is not necessary. However, monitoring journals with excessive self-citation rates is recommended to avoid distortions in impact assessment procedures based on h5-index of Google Scholar Metrics.

Identification of the most important external features of highly cited scholarly papers through 3 (i.e., Ridge, Lasso, and Boruta) feature selection data mining methods

Highly cited papers are influenced by external factors that are not directly related to the document's intrinsic quality. In this study, 50 characteristics for measuring the performance of 68 highly cited papers, from the Journal of The American Medical Informatics Association indexed in Web of Science (WOS), from 2009 to 2019 were investigated. In the first step, a Pearson correlation analysis is performed to eliminate variables with zero or weak correlation with the target (“dependent”) variable (number of citations in WOS). Consequently, 32 variables are selected for the next step. By applying the Ridge technique, 13 features show a positive effect on the number of citations. Using three different algorithms, i.e., Ridge, Lasso, and Boruta, 6 factors appear to be the most relevant ones. The "Number of citations by international researchers", "Journal self-citations in citing documents”, and "Authors' self-citations in citing documents”, are recognized as the most important features by all three methods here used. The "First author's scientific age”, "Open-access paper”, and "Number of first author's citations in WOS" are identified as the important features of highly cited papers by only two methods, Ridge and Lasso. Notice that we use specific machine learning algorithms as feature selection methods (Ridge, Lasso, and Boruta) to identify the most important features of highly cited papers, tools that had not previously been used for this purpose. In conclusion, we re-emphasize the performance resulting from such algorithms. Moreover, we do not advise authors to seek to increase the citations of their articles by manipulating the identified performance features. Indeed, ethical rules regarding these characteristics must be strictly obeyed.

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.

Factors, components and dynamics: investigation of journal self-citation and citation by equal opportunity model

The effectivity of journal impact factor (JIF) is questioned in evaluating academic players. Coercive self-citation was widely criticized and Clarivate annually suppressed journals with high journal self-citation (JSC) rates. Recently, some journals significantly increased their articles but their JIFs and JSC rates were diversified which lacks reasonable explanations. Here, we revealed the complexities of the dynamical interactions among different influence factors and different components of journal citation. Journal citation frequencies have strong correlations with JSC rates regarding citable items, significant correlations with numbers of journals' articles and negative significant correlations with JSC rates regarding total citations. Journal citation consists of JSC, intradisciplinary non-JSC and interdisciplinary non-JSC. JSC has the quickest dynamic and interdisciplinary non-JSC has the slowest dynamic while most journals are more cited by interdisciplinary citations. Journal citation is initially decided by the number of citable items. Journal's share (citing articles) in related disciplines influence JSC and intradisciplinary non-JSC positively and negatively, respectively. Multiple citations promoted by the increase in articles, the skewness of the topic profile, preference-related self-citation and anomalous self-citation are of benefit to citation. The complex dynamical interactions result in increment effects of the number of articles acting on JIF, which is stronger for JSC and citable items. The increase in articles also promotes intradisciplinary non-JSC when the journal's shares in related disciplines are low. This process will be reversed after the journal's shares become high enough which may finally decrease its impact factor. It is quicker for the journal with a stronger intradisciplinary citation. The calculational results of the average JIFs of selected journals agree with the statistical results. In addition, we can explain the related situations of some journals. Finally, we suggested that the JSC rate in terms of citable items should be considered for judging the level of JSC.

Self-citation and its impact on scientific workflow assessment: The review of publications. Part I

The author reviews publications on the problem of self-citation and resulting mispresentations at the stage bibliometric analysis. He introduces the definition of self-citation and its special cases, i. e. author’s, institutional, publisher’s and disciplinary. The formulas for general self-citation metrics, i. e. self-citation and self-citedness coefficients, are provided. The global publications on author’s, institutional, national and journal self-citation are reviewed thoroughly. The current concepts of the role and impact of self-citation on scientific activity assessment are generalized. On the basis of his analytical review, the author argues that the researchers obtain consensus on several aspects, e. g.: а) excessive and absent self-citation are both seen as pathologies; в) self-citation has insignificant impact on large research entities though this influence can be critical when analyzing contributions by individual authors; с) self-citation impact is well-expressed for scientific entities with weak bibliometric indicators, while the top scientists, organizations, journals, etc., get most of external links. The author examines the response of bibliometric indicators and databases to self-citation manipulations to adjust the indicators.Part I of the review is intended to define the basic concepts and terms and to examine the most popular author’s self-citation.

Factors, Components and Dynamics: Investigation of Journal Self-Citation and Citation by Equal Opportunity Model

Factors, Components and Dynamics: Investigation of Journal Self-Citation and Citation by Equal Opportunity Model

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.

Assessing the publication output in the field of forensic science and legal medicine using Web of Science database from 2011 to 2020

The aim of this study was threefold. First, it analyzed the characteristics of the publication outputs for the Legal Medicine (LM) category using the Web of Science (WoS) database during 2011–2020. Second, it discussed the distribution of the papers for the 25 most productive countries/regions in terms of quality and quantity, such as the h-index and GDP per capita. Finally, it investigated the trend and temporal stability of the journal impact factor (JIF) and determined the percentage of the journal self-citations. The findings suggested that the number of papers, the average number of pages of the papers, the average number of cited references in the papers, the average number of authors per paper, the percentage of open access papers, as well as international and domestic collaboration tended to increase regularly. However, the productivity was limited when compared to the whole WoS database, since there was no significant change in the number of the journals. The countries/regions with the highest number of publications were not those that made the most impact in terms of the widespread impact of the publications. The level of international cooperation and the funding for the research had dramatic impact on the visibility of papers. The average JIF has increased significantly while the journal self-citation rates have decreased in a similar way. The journals have had very stable (have not fluctuated) impact factors over time. During the period studied, the journals with the higher impact factors (Q1, Q2) published many more papers than journals with the lower impact factors (Q3, Q4).

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]

Self-citation and citation of top journal publishers and their interpretation in the journal-discipline context

The increasing influence of publishers on academic publishing has inevitably promoted studies of publisher citation and self-citation. However, in this type of citation analysis, it is difficult to integrate size dependence and independence among multiple citations and citing articles. We conducted a comprehensive and global study on citation and self-citation at the publisher level and examine the determinants of their different components. Obvious skewness exists in self-citation and citation of the top 20 journal publishers in essential science indicators. Publisher citation significantly correlates with publisher self-citation (PSC) excluding journal self-citation (JSC). Regarding the top 20 journal publishers, we reveal dependency relations of various citations from self-citation to citation and between intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary. JSC integrates with proportion (number), discipline and topic profiles of publisher’s articles and number of publisher’s journals to influence PSC excluding JSC. After exceeding an inflection point related to the JSC rate, the increase in the proportion of articles will become positive for intradisciplinary PSC excluding JSC. Namely, when the JSC rate of a publisher exceeds a value related to its proportion of articles, the increase in its JSC will decrease its intradisciplinary PSC excluding JSC. The increase in the unevenness of the discipline profile of articles can decrease the value of the inflection point and strengthen the effectiveness of the proportion of articles after exceeding the inflection point. In contrast, the increase in the unevenness of the topic profile of articles can increase intradisciplinary PSC excluding JSC regardless of the number of articles. Interdisciplinary PSC is mainly determined by the number of articles. The decrease in the number of journals, from the top 10 to the top 11–20 journal publishers, increases the self-citations in transition statuses between intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary by strengthening the effectiveness of JSC and the number of articles. The topic profile of articles can also directly influence non-self-citation.

Do journals raise their impact factor or SCImago ranking by self-citing in editorials? A bibliometric analysis of trauma and orthopaedic journals.

Impact factor (IF) is widely accepted as a measure of a journal's quality but it can be influenced by self-citation. However, the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) is based on journal prestige, excludes self-citation and considers quality of citations of a journal. This study aimed to investigate journal editors' use of self-citation and whether this correlated with IFs or SJR in trauma and orthopaedic (T&O) journals. T&O journals on the SJR database were identified. From each journal, data including country of publication, number of annual issues, IF, SJR indicator and citable articles were extracted. The editorial(s) of each issue in 2018 were reviewed. The total number of times the editors cited their own previous work or their journal (in the preceding 2 years, 2016-2017) were identified. Regression analyses were performed to investigate the association of editorial self-citation with journal IF or SJR indicator. Of the 270 journals identified, 43 T&O journals with 151 editorials were included in the final analysis. A positive correlation between journal self-citation in the editorial and IF (P= 0.02) and SJR indicator (P= 0.02) was found. Citation by editors of their own publications within editorials also positively correlated with IF (P= 0.04) but not for SJR indicator (P= 0.19). There was a positive linear relationship between journal IF and SJR indicators (P< 0.01). Editor self-citation influences the IF and SJR indicators in T&O journals. Therefore, these metrics should be considered in conjunction with other factors such as audience, topics included and international presence when evaluating journals.

Ranking journals through the lens of active visibility

Use of citation as a proxy unit in deriving research impact indicators largely hinges on universal referencing norms promulgated by Robert K. Merton. However, signals arising out of research fields indicate that referencing practices have often been affected by prejudices and expectations. Journals’ citation oeuvre may also be inflated by intelligent mix of citation optimizing tools, which render it difficult to detect. This study reveals that reach of a research publication (measured by its distinct users) is not always proportional to its citation counts. The application of raw citations as units to derive impact of research publication entities like journals thus poses a great threat to research community itself. This study introduces a new ranking method for journals where distinct authors (contributing as well as citing) are taken as units rather than raw citations. By considering authors as building units in the new indicator, the method can nullify/lessen the effect of common citation optimizing factors like journal self-citations, author self-citations and recitations on it. To legitimate the proposed method, an experimental study is conducted on 30 semi-systematically selected ‘Library and Information Science’ journals. It reflects that the new indicator favors authority of those journals that have relatively low self-citations and recitations.